Re: FLASH: Perfect size?

[Troy M. Gilbert]

>Does it make a difference to *.fla filesize if I create my movie at,

>say, 1100x800 rather than 550x400? By rights it shouldn't because of the

>vectors but I'm just not 100% on this one.


I don't know about FLA file size (but I'd guess no), but it can make a

subtle difference in the final SWF file size. I don't know how noticeable

the difference would be, though... here's the reason (please excuse me if

its gets technical):


SWF uses a form of compression that makes small numbers take up less space.

Normally, numbers stored in binary files take up a fixed amount of space

(normally 2 or 4 bytes). To make SWF files small, Flash first determines

how many bits are *really* necessary for the number. For example, if its

less than 16 then you only need 4-bits to store it. If you had twenty of

these numbers defining the coordinates of a shape, that can be quite a

savings (40 bytes compared to 10 bytes). So, theoretically if you had a

stage size of only 16 by 16 pixels, the majority of your numbers would be

only half-bytes. Of course, you would have only 256 different pixels to

work with for control points. (As an aside: while Flash is a vector format,

it stores coordinates and transforms in a fixed-point notation, which means

that there is a *real* limit to its precision.)


Well, that was a little long-winded, I apologize... but I hope it answered

some questions.


Troy.





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