Photo waves strangely in flash why?

[BadBadNeil]

I have an image in flash in a mask, its a screenshot of an application GUI that i need to use. Its approx 600 pixels wide and 100% JPG imported. It does a quick alpha animation and then just sits still no animation at all.

The problem is the image appaers to wave a little or be jittery in some parts of the image. Anyone know why this is happening?

I tried changing output rez from 60% to 80% with no change.

Any suggestions much appreciated, i need to finish this project.

Thanks!

[Ricod]

Jittering ? Like 'moray' ? (whats the english equivalent ?) small, tiny patterns put together and then start some jitter effect ? Like when someone where's something with many tiny lines or checkerboard pattern ? What if you put it at 100 % instead, does the jitter stop ? (or do you just have an old monitor ?)

How's the Maya project getting along btw ?

[Sir Patroclo]

I also have a masked jpg that waves strangely. It seems to follow a pattern of squares, like the refreshment pattern in photoshop. In the same scene I have more jpg's of the same size and res but nothing happen to them. It's weird...

[BadBadNeil]

Yup Sir Patroclo exactly.

Ricod! :) Long time no talk!

I got a job as a multimedia / web designer so i've been doing that along with freelance. Maya stuff is side projects now.


But yeah in areas of the image it appears jittery almost like a moray pattern. I'm not sure if its some funky way flash is interpreting the rastor images or what?

The flash file is at 100% and the image isnt resized in flash at all, its only within a mask area. Even at 100% it does it.

The monitor shouldnt be an issue.

I'm using a 22" NEC 2141SB and a 22" NEC FP1342, both high end design monitors.

[Ricod]

Good to hear BadBadNeil ! ... there's no way to go without the masks I suppose ...

ehrm ... can't think of anything at the moment ...

[crabcake]

Try opening your original file in Photoshop and copying and pasting it into Flash using a clipboard preference of 32-bit. Then allow Flash to do the jpeg compression for you. I always bring my images in this way, as Flash has very good compression techniques and you avoid the double compression distortion.

Also, Flash can give some wierd distortion effects when images are placed over the top of each other - it sort of distorts bits of the image in a wierd wavy pattern. I always try to avoid placing one raster over another.

[BadBadNeil]

Thanks I'll try those two things tomorrow when I go to work, I'm gonna pray its just a compression thing like you said.

[Sir Patroclo]

jpgs get distorted when you place them inside movie clips, and the re-scale that movie clip. The bitmaps were huge inside the MC, but the MC itself was reduced about 50%, and the images looked like low res, all pixelated and stuff (and I was suposed to be gaining dpi's). And not to mention the issue with fonts. Maybe is the same rule, you have to have absolute spacial and scale values in order to avoid the distortion...

Well, goodbye

Sir Patroclo

[BadBadNeil]

The problem was solved by bringing in a .psd of the image instead of a jpeg. Guess it was re-jpegging the jpeg.

Yay

[big_k]

i've also found that if you make a rectangle over the .jpg, and make it into a graphic, and set it at 0 alpha then the jpg will stop being all funny

[BadBadNeil]

I wonder the reason for that in flash terms.... there must be a technical reason it acts funny and a reason that these methods would work.

[crabcake]

The reason for the double compression issue is the same as anywhere else. You never recompress an already compressed file in Photoshop, Flash or elsewhere because you multiply the artefacts.

With regard to the other stuff, it all comes down to the algorithms written to deal with the raster images. After all, Flash is essentially a vector based program that happens to allow you to import and use bitmapped images. It doesn't "see" them in the way a Photoshop type program does. Even it's option to break apart bitmaps and use the magic wand on them is nothing more than a kind of masking function. When you add in other pieces, like a graphic instance on top of the image, you change the way the screen view is calculated by the code that is your Flash application.