Insert PNG into SWF / PNG to SWF Conversion serverside

[karmakat]

Hi all....

I want to hear peoples opinions and experience with Inserting a PNG into SWF or PNG conversion to SWF

There seems to be some major disparities on what people think about the methodology and even possibility of this on a unix system, serverside.

I have put many many hours googling this, and have found much conflicting info... I am still not convinced this is impossible....

Ming somehow requires you to convert pngs to the dbl format before it can do a server side conversion...
Except.... there are no server side functions to do this!!

Flash can't dynamically load pngs... what a stupid omission...

I have seen this (png inserted into swf) being done, however...

on http://charas-project.net

after you create your character, you can view a flash preview...

this is where they do it... i think... i have asked them on their forums.. but no answer as of yet...
great site btw...


Look forward to hearing your guys responses!

- Aleks AKA KarmaKat

[CyanBlue]

Howdy and Welcome... :)

[COPY]
What about using a tool like this to convert the PNG files to SWF files???

http://www.quiss.org/swftools/png2swf.html
http://www.active-web.cc/html/png2swf/
[/PASTE]
:D

[petefs]

the tool on active-web.cc will only work in windows, but the quiss.org swftools run on linux -- good call, Cyan : )

I know I've seen a linux png2dbl util somewhere if you want to use ming to pull the dbl in. The CVS source can be found here, but I'm sure there are compiled versions somewhere http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/ming/ming/util/png2dbl.c

[karmakat]

ok...
so the quiss one is for linux/unix

how in the hell do i use this?

documentation for png2swf is not clear at all...

thanks guys!

-aleks

[petefs]

the documentation is rather clear, I think : )

for example, if you want to convert a single png into a swf without altering width or height

png2swf image.png
should output image.swf (haven't tried it :b)

if you want specify the filename

png2swf -o flash_file.swf image.png

etc. if you want to import a sequence just use the -r switch to set framerate and list all the pngs in order with spaces between them

png2swf -o png_sequence.swf -r 30 image1.png image2.png image3.png image4.png etc...

which will do a movie at 30 fps.

[JerryScript]

The latest CVS version of Ming0.3 will do the conversion from png2dbl automatically and then can be used as a bitmap fill in a shape which is wrapped in the SWF movie.

You may have to edit the configuration/make files when building to suit your systems paths.

[Cota]

What, no one likes img2swf anymore? Probably the easiest to use, since its a drag and drop component. www.img2swf.com

[CyanBlue]

This one I've found that converts JPEG file to SWF file... (Just for the record...)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jpg2swf-thumb

[karmakat]

The latest version of MING does allow for pngs to inserted into a swf serverside using only php. Yay! another point for php against the smelly .net
If you are interested in the script, drop me a line..
Good luck
-karmakat aka aleksandr berland

[d3ntaku]

I have only been able to get Ming 0.3a working with its own DBL files... just built it yesterday. Can you post any examples w/ the incoming PNGs?

In my experience ming exits when these funcs aer called:
$myfill=$shapetobitmapfill->addFill($img, SWFFILL_CLIPPED_BITMAP);

[karmakat]

http://www.karmakat.ca/icon/test/png/

in this directory there are several scripts. One of them should do the trick.

cheers
-aleks aka karmakat

[buggedcom]

it might be worth looking at this

http://www.metasphere.net/image2swf.html

not too sure what to make of it as i haven't ever seen it around before and there is not much info on it, it is cgi based and FREE