Flash animation not smooth

[jreyes]

Within the past two months, flash has been animating items as if they have a stutter. Even on very simple tests, like a letter moving from one side of the screen to the other, on a blank canvas with no other animations. The letter will begin animating and stutter as it goes creating a very distracting animation. I have 80mb of ram allocated to Flash so I know that that can't be the problem. My animations are not very big, 100-150k at the most. Should I just reinstall flash?

[Strok]

1)I'll recomend to use a frame rate about 24fps
2)Maybe you have to clean up your computer a l/bit
you have a 80 megs (but maybe all in use)

[Edited by Strok on 04-12-2001 at 04:21 PM]

[jreyes]

Thanks for your response. I was under the understanding that you should not go any higher than 12-15fps? I've stepped it up, but that hasn't solved the "stutter." What I mean by that is that when the animation is moving, it will briefly stop, then start again. Very weird.

I have 320mgs of ram built in, so I don't think the memory allocation to Flash would be causing the stutter.

I'll definitely try to clean my machine up. I did a desktop rebuild just last week. Hmmmm. . . .

Any other thoughts?

Thanks, Jose

[Jesse]

If you're having trouble with vector graphics I'd start to worry. Often when you import JPGs and the like and then try to tween them you may get jilted movement but if you're jsut trying to animate a box or letter which you drew in Flash you should have no problems...

I reformat in general once a month to clean up my system but then again most people say I'm mad for doing that... I would suggest contacting Macromedia perhaps and asking them if they can explain it, or check their online tech notes, as it sounds very inexplicable.

Cheers

Jesse

[jreyes]

Thanks for your response. I'll do that!

[abosio]

I am having the same problem.

If you see this and figured out the problem, please, please email me or reply here.

This is also happening to me with motion tweened or actionscripted movement with the jpeg I'm hoping to move or VERY simple vectors (a square) created in Flash as a test.

I have tried 12fps and 24fps also, to no avail.

If it is only my system, I can live with that but I don't understand why. (On a G4 450mHZ with 256mb of RAM and lots devoted to Flash. I do video on this machine with no problems.)

I will try to test it on other computers/platforms, but I'm guessing it's not a computer specific thing.

Anybody please reply if you know about this problem.

Thank you,
-Anthony

[jreyes]

Abosio, I have tried everything you have and more. I finally re-installed Flash and it seems to be working a bit better. I have a hunch that if you install other software or updates to your computer AFTER Flash has been installed, then Flash starts acting up. That's the only thing I can think of that could be causing this problem. It's EXTREMELY annoying. I hope this helps.

[abosio]

Flash is the last thing I installed on the computer. Have you tried your project(s) on other computers with any success? Did it turn out to be just yours?

Thanks so much for the feedback.

-Anthony

[6-Kid]

when you scale your movie or try to use a lot of anims at the same time then try it again at 120 FPS (no typo)

a animated movie with 4 or 5 xtra animated movies in it
will stutter(slow down) even on a 1.3Ghz with 384MB machine

[jreyes]

Makes sense, but check out my first post. Even with a very simple animation, I've gotten the stutter.

[6-Kid]

Do you mean stutter when you check it in flash itself or when you click on Control -> test movie ?

[jreyes]

Both. However, I did just change my frame rate from 12fps to 120fps like you suggested and it was very smooth. But that completely flies in the face of building flash animation and convention for that matter. Not that I have a problem with that, but I can just envision very large files and marketing folks whining about it taking 10 seconds to load rather than 8. Do you have examples on the web that I can check out where you've animated using that high of a frame rate?

Thanks

[gert]

by using 120fps you'll kill all users with slow computers

[abosio]

Just as a followup, I checked my project on other machines and it ran fine.

I don't think it has anything to do with frame rates or the power of the computer used to create it because I had tons of RAM on a 450mHZ machine running Flash.

I suspect it is something specific to my machine, that may also be common on others, but don't have the time to narrow it down yet.

[jake]

i sort of have the same problem but not really its not that bad.
i looked at the tutorials and in the "mask follows mouse" in tutorial 19 on the easy ones http://www.actionscripts.org/tutorials/beginner/Mask_follows_mouse/index.shtml
the guy used this after he did his scripts fo the mouse drag...
updateAfterEvent();
i took it out and the thing sort of stuttered but with it the animation went really smoooth.
i dont know how to use it entirely but there might be something about it you can find out tell me when you do.


...or im probably a moron :-P

[Jesse]

updateAfterEvent() forces a redraw of the sprites on stage. It's useful for very highly programtic SWFs which don't loop through frames often (or at all). Sprites are auto-redrawn every frame though, so most normal movies wouldn't need it (IMHO).

[zoomfreddy]

All the problems, at least in Mac, are because of the flash player 5 i think it has a bug!!!!

[zoomfreddy]

All the problems, at least in Mac, are because of the flash player 5 i think it has a bug!!!!

I use an Imac to develope all the flashes and then try in pc's, some movies work fine in both plataforms, but others just start the slow-motion thing in Mac, my tests are made in:
Imac 500Mhz.
Imac 400Mhz.
Pc Atlhon 800Mhz.
Pc PentiumII 366Mhz.

In overall performance, the Imac work a billion times better than the pc's, but when it comes to flash movies...i just cry.

[DjBobo]

are you testing the movie in the right player? sometimes I've found that flash movies open in a different version of the flash player like java flash player debugger or 68k flash player.

If your on a PC, I don't know what to suggest

[DjBobo]

another reason is that the mac player only recognises certain frame rates like 16, 21, 31, 61. For example, if you set the frame rate to 20fps, it will play at about 16 even if your on the fastest mac out there. If the frame rate is set to 30, it will only play at 20fps. This has nothing to do with how fast the computer is, but just the mac player itself. I always set my flash movies to either 21 or 31. That's the most compatable on every setup.

[Jesse]

Patric Thiel gave us a good hint at FK01. He said to turn JPG quality down to 0 (in publish options) if you're using any imported graphics at all, apparently it can speed up your file by 50%, and he should know :)

[PonchingaD]

drop the .jpg's quality to 0? wouldn't it suck? i mean the image would look aweful.

[jreyes]

yes they would look pretty gnarly wouldn't they?

[abosio]

Take the jpegs out of your project and it will run faster. Oooo Oooo, Take out all the graphics too. Just use text!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

-Anthony

[Jesse]

No the JPGs looked exactly the same, the difference was they didn't smooth when you zoomed and scaled. That's all I noticed and this was on a 4 meter projector so I think it's pretty solid :)