MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX, Use Manual

Page: 313 / 624

Using Flash and Other Interactive Media Types 313
•
Use Copy ink if possible. Transparency, using Background Transparent ink, requires much
more processing time. If your Flash sprite is in the background (no other Director sprites are
behind it), use Copy instead of Background Transparent, and author your Flash movie in such
a way that its background color is the same as the background color you chose for your
Director Stage.
•
Use Direct to Stage if possible. Layering and transparency are not supported in this mode;
however, if you just want to play a Flash movie within a box with the best performance
possible, this may be the way to go.
•
Make sure that the Director movie tempo is set high enough. Unless you’re using Direct to
Stage, your Flash movie will not play faster than the Director movie frame rate, regardless of
the
frameRate
or
fixedRate
setting. For smoothest playback, set the Director frame rate to at
least 30 frames per second (fps).
•
Use Lock-Step or Fixed playback mode to adjust the Flash movie frame rate. Lock-Step gives
the best performance, because playback of the Flash movie is synchronized to the Director
movie frame for frame.
•
Set the
static
property of the sprite to
TRUE
if your sprite contains no animation (such as a
static block of text) and doesn’t overlap other moving Director sprites. This keeps Director
from redrawing the sprite every frame unless it moves or changes size.
•
When modifying Flash properties using Lingo, set the properties for the sprite rather than
for the cast member. Setting the properties for the cast member modifies values at the cast
member level and broadcasts the change to all sprites on the Stage. This overhead can affect
performance. If you have only a single sprite for the cast member, modify the sprite
property directly.
•
Avoid using more Flash sprites on the Stage at the same time than necessary. Each Flash sprite
loads its own instance of the Flash Asset Xtra into memory, which can slow performance.
•
Limit the amount of Lingo that executes while the Flash movie plays. Avoid tight repeat
loops between frames. The usual Director performance optimizations apply when using
Flash movies.
•
If you import compressed SWF files (new in Flash MX), be aware that Director will use
memory for both the compressed and uncompressed versions of the file until the file has been
completely uncompressed into memory.
For more information about using Flash in Director, see the Flash section of the Director Support
Center (www.macromedia.com/support/director/programs_fl.html).
Using Director movies within Director movies
You can import a Director movie into another movie as an internal or linked cast member, with
the Import command. As with other media types, you can link to an external movie file or
import the file so that it becomes internal media. The way you choose to import a movie affects
its properties:
•
For linked movies, cast member scripts and behaviors (sprite scripts) work as before; select
Enable Scripts in the Linked Movie tab of the Property inspector. Frame and movie scripts do
not work. As with other types of linked media, the external movie file must be present on the
system when the host movie plays.
•
For movies imported as internal media, the movie appears as a film loop, and interactivity does
not work. Use this mainly for animations.