We are working on a packaged html5 game for the FirefoxOS marketplace.
Our game passes review, except the game shows a black screen before starting. The reviewers said this black screen shows for a very long time. It is my belief that the games wrapper is trying to load ALL assets before it shows the game.
The problem is, our game already has internal loaders that load portions of the game assets. Does anybody know how to tell the FirefoxOS packaged html5 app to let the game do all of the loading, so my preloaders can work?
I also use Flambe. Befor it can display anything, it should load at least the index.html, flambe.js (flambe project loader) and ofcourse main-html.js file (actual game code). From that point you could load other assets to display an actual preloader, but that could also take time. If you use FillSprites then it reduces some time.
But what I mostly do, is adding a simple CSS3 animation (loader) on top of the canvas. I give this html element a certain id, and when I have loaded enough to show the "real" preloader, I remove this CSS loader animation from the DOM. This allows to show a preloader very fast or to load a bit more designed preloader if you wish.
Related
I'm a relatively new developer in AS3 using Flash Builder. My objective is to create a quick/fast loading small SWF preloader for a larger (30mg) SWF application. I can't include the larger SWF inside the preloader, but I can use external interface calls to get jquery to tell me what the speed of internet the users are using and figure out how long it should take to load based on the size of the larger SWF.
Right now, we have a large web application that takes around 5 mins to load if the client has a slow internet connection. So, we wanted to use a small SWF preloader that will display a loading circle or loading bar, and display options if the SWF takes longer than 5 mins to load. Kind of like error handling. For instance, for Safari, sometimes the player actually has to click the SWF in order for it to load. Is it possible to have a button on the SWF that will make it start loading?... Is it easier to create the preloader in jQuery? I'm just wondering if it's just going to create more issues using a SWF to load a SWF. Any ideas?...
Any ideas on how to tackle this beast? I've read almost every article about preloaders but there is nothing that references preloaders created in Flash Builder.
I can't use Flash Professional or timeline. It has to be in Flash Builder.
So I tried to use the below tutorial and I wasn't able to actually get anything to appear when I test it. I'm getting an error at the "run()" function:
Error: Error #2136: The SWF file http://local.myproj.com/MyProject.swf contains invalid data.
at Preloader/run()[/Development/MyProject/src/Preloader.as:109]
at Preloader/onEnterFrame()[/Development/MyProject/src/Preloader.as:46]
References:
http://fortheloss.org/how-to-preloader-in-flash-builder-4-7/
I worked until two years ago with a lot of these things and I know I have a few good scripts in my databases, but you are talking about Preloaded & activated loading were as in a preloader it is out of the hands of say a visitor what he or she can or cannot do, and in using a button (possible of course) the visitor has a choice to download or not! From memory there was never really a lot published yet over years of using Flex Builder I have collected some good AS3 scripts and modified them (including a progress-bar - but without time Indicator) to download in web Apps. or FLEX AIR etc. with AS3.
The small problem would only be to adapt any of it from mx to fx depending on what FLEX Builder you use!
I used my scripts mainly to download high resolution Images, Calendars, SWFs etc. with up to compressed 22 mB! Anyway, if Interested I have to look up my FLEX databases & Application to get it to you! rgs Aktell
I'm loading dynamic loading of all my SWCs in my master SWF, in order to load master swf faster, however now I need to cache all my swcs in local machine to speed up things.
private function loadAssets():void
{
swcObj=new Object();
swcObj.swcPath='assets/swc/1.swc';
swcObj.className="Part_0_1";
swcs.push(swcObj);
swcObj=new Object();
swcObj.swcPath='assets/swc/2.swc';
swcObj.className="0_2";
swcs.push(swcObj);
swcObj=new Object();
swcObj.swcPath='assets/swc/3.swc';
swcObj.className="0_3";
swcs.push(swcObj);
}
Then I'm using this array to use all the classes in my project, but I have no idea how to cache these swcs for faster use, if anyone have idea, please share.
In fact, the browser does this pre-caching for you, you don't need to produce extra efforts. So, just load them normally and don't worry about caching. You can, however, motivate the user to increase their local browser cache in order to potentially lessen time spent on waiting while your assets are loaded, but this won't help should the user watch three tons of YouTube each day.
SWC files are not intended for dynamic loading.
They are static libraries that can be linked in a swf using
-include-libraries and library-path options of mxmlc or - since you seem to be using FlashDevelop - SWC Include Libraries and SWC Libraries in Project>Compiler options
. SWC's may hold code (classes), assets (symbols/bitmaps/sounds...) or combination of the two.
Loading assets dynamically is done through flash.display.Loader
you may use the Loader as a simple DisplayObject instance that you add on stage:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/Loader.html#includeExamplesSummary
, or use its ApplicationDomain as a library of Class definitions that will allow you to create instances at will :
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/system/ApplicationDomain.html#includeExamplesSummary
Caching from the browser will be sufficient in most cases, unless you have VERY specific needs
In the end, there is different ways to optimize loading times, one of which is having a small swf acting as loader/home menu, and loading rest of the content on demand like you seem to try doing, but you can also create a single swf with several frames, which will be "streamed" by flash player, example:
1st frame as small as possible holding just a few kb for a splash screen/logo/loading/whatever you want, to make the initial blank screen as short as possible, then second frame holding the main content. You can event extent this system with for instance
two levels of preloader: a first tiny frame with just a logo, second one with progress bar, and full background if needed
split content like home screen/menus in a frame, gameplay in the another, if you are making a game, so that gameplay continues loading while you are already displaying the menu
Please click on the below link
http://hpecp.vmokshagroup.com/videobook/html/homepage.html
When we click on "What is VideoBook" link we got some blank screen before starting the swf file due to video fetching from the server. We have to avoid blank screen.
We are facing a problem of fetching the video clips from the hosting server. I added two video clips in Flash (.swf)... one is from the beginning, another one is at the ending and in between some text animations.
While we are playing/calling .swf file in browser from hosting server, initially getting blank screen. It takes some time to fetching the video clip from server due to size. Starting of first video clip duration is about 3-6 seconds. While video is being loaded.. text animation is starting without playing first video clip. Same problem we are facing in second video at the ending.
Is there any option to incorporate video clips internally in Flash (.swf file) rather than calling from external server or external file path?
Any help would be appreciated.
This happens because of the JavaScript that you use - it actually makes the swf files (in)visible depending on the situation. What this does is that it actually loads the .swf files each time. You can check that in the Network tab of your debugger (I'm using Chrome).
So it first loads Video-01d.swf, or Video-02.swf. They take time to load, and just when the main file is loaded, it starts to load the video file (video1.flv).
All that causes delay, and it's pretty normal as you have all that things in separate files. If you want to, you can merge them into one - just import the flv inside your .swf file and it will work out well..
Of course, you will need to change all your logic for the flash files that you are playing. You will also need to change the JavaScript to call Flash functions in order to tell it to go to another "scene".
I will advise you to add a simple gif loader image (like this), put it as a background-image of the div, and put some color into that div. What the user will see is that the movie disappears, there is a black background with a loading symbol inside, and then the new video begins. It's a normal thing to see online - preloaders :) Good luck!
I'm having some difficulties with preloader and assets.
I'm working with FlashDevelop so pure AS3/Flex, no FLASH IDE
The thing is : when I try to addChild() something like a swf or event a simple png/jpg it kills the preloader completly (blanck screen until the game is fully loaded, then the preloader is launch (but the game is already loaded) so one frame later I'm after the preloader.
I think I missed something in the logic behind the management of the famous "first frame" and the loader progress event.
If someone have any idea about what I'm talking about. I'd like some light about the subject ^^
Thx !
-UPDATE-
I re-searched for more informations and found this post :
How does the preloader work in as3?
MichaelJW points my problem but doesn't answer it :
"You can do whatever you like in a preloader, but it won't run any of its code until everything needed by the preloader has downloaded. So if you make a preloader with a 3MB image file and a progress bar, the progress bar won't do anything until the entire image has downloaded!"
So how do you get to use some image to build a preloader ?
I have encountered this before and my "work around" was to build 2 separate loaders. The first is VERY light weight and loads all initial assets (like a rotating 5k png), the second if the "bulk load" of assets etc..
when the first is done loading it triggers the load of the second round of assets. You are right tho, you CANNOT use assets till they are loaded completely..
I've got to (quickly!) add an intro to an existing flash masthead on a site that I've inherited. I don't have access to the source .fla's, so I approached the problem by putting the intro in a wrapper swf and loading the current masthead and adding it to the display list on Event.INIT. So far, so good. (Incidentally, the swfs are built for flash player 9 and use AS3.)
The problem I'm having is that although the intro plays fine and loads / displays the beginning of the masthead swf, which is a loading animation, the masthead itself never actually plays. Essentially, my question is: what would cause an actionscript 3-based swf to behave differently when it's the child of another swf as opposed to at the top level of the embedded swf?
Potentially important details: Embedding is being handled with swfobject, and no flashvars are being passed in. There are two params, which are base: "/flash/" and wmode: "opaque". All the swfs and flash data live in /flash/. The flash elements (minus the intro I built) were constructed using the Inky flash framework, with which I'm not familiar.
UPDATE: I've reconsidered my approach to the problem and gotten it working by using ExternalInterface; I'm having the intro swf call a js function when it finishes playing, which swaps out the intro swf and replaces it with the current masthead (the approach is outlined here). I'd still like to know why I was witnessing the behavior I was seeing earlier, though, so any ideas and suggestions would be welcome.
There could be a couple of potential problems with your flash files.
If your swf was compiled in AS2, it could be referencing _root which would be messed up when it is loaded into another swf. In AS2, you can get around it by using _lockroot. In AS3, this is not longer a problem because _lockroot is inheritted.
If your movie was a timeline based movie, you can try to invoke the play() function.
If your intro loads external assets, you will want to make sure your paths are set correctly for all your external assets. Try to put the swf file of your container and the intro in to the same directory. Or troubleshoot by using the Safari Activity window to see if you have any "404 not found".
Another thing is inconsistent flash version. You could run into problem if you load a Flash version 9 with a Flash version 10.
Hope these pointers help.