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stevethebrain
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animation without GIFs - 7/31/2009 7:25:56
can FP03 layers be used for animation using JPEG. files? like flash layers?
if so how is this done?
I've beeen attempting this and get one layer under the previous.
I know a little about flash MX layers however I can't insert into a FP03 doc. keeps saying need to install a image converter which I've tryed unsuccesfully.
Thanks
< Message edited by stevethebrain -- 7/31/2009 7:50:29 >
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womble
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RE: animation without GIFs - 7/31/2009 10:49:54
Short answer - nope, JPEGs can't be animated.
For animation you need either GIF or the newer APNG (animated PNG). The problem with GIFs is that you're limited to only 256 colours, which while it's okay for simple images where there aren't many colours or you have large blocks of colours, aren't much good for photos.
PNGs have the advantage that like JPEGs they can display many more colours, and also, unlike JPEGs, support transparency like GIFs (though IE6 had a bit of a problem with alpha transparency, but you can "fix" that with a small javascript script).
If you need more colours than the GIF format will show, if you want animation you'll need an animated PNG (APNG), or something like Flash. If the images you've got are in JPEG format they can easily be converted into PNG format in any graphics application, including free ones like Paint.NET or the Gimp.
This site has details of animated PNGs as well as an online APNG assembler and software that can be downloaded to create animated PNGs. The major problem with animated PNGs though is that they'll only work properly on modern browsers such as Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5. A major problem with APNG is that IE, with the majority share of the browser market doesn't support it, so really, at the moment it's a bit of a non-starter.
Your other alternative, apart from Flash etc., is using Java or Javascript to animate PNGs. This is one of the many sites online that have scripts for animating PNGs to produce simple animations. Without javascript though, visitors won't see the animation.
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~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~
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stevethebrain
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RE: animation without GIFs - 7/31/2009 13:55:11
quote:
womble I'm not liking the way gifs lose the clairity of my images.
would really like to be able to insert flash files into a FP 03 doc.
from what I've read so far is that the macromedia flash MX files need to be saved as a SWF then it can be inserted into a FP 03 doc. any tips on how this is done?
? when I create a web site I usally make a new folder containing my index page alone w/ other pages,
alone with images what is this storage folder referred to as?
Thanks womble for advice
also is it possible to upload attachments here on these threads?
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womble
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RE: animation without GIFs - 7/31/2009 16:06:53
I no longer actually use FP myself and I rarely use Flash, but it's fairly simple to insert a Flash movie into HTML using the <object> and <embed> tags (you'll need to be in either split or code view in FP though to insert the code directly into the underlying HTML). W3Schools has a nice little tutorial on inserting Flash into HTML: http://www.w3schools.com/flash/flash_inhtml.asp - one of a series of Flash articles. It's a nice little tutorial and goes through it step by step.
As you said, your Flash file needs to be in the SWF format.
The directory where you have your index (home) page is usually the root of your name, and then it's usual to have sub-directories for other different types of files. I usually set mine up with the website's pages in the root of the domain, and then separate directories for graphics ("images"), CSS stylesheets ("styles" or "css"), javascript scripts etc. ("scripts"), and as I use PHP on my sites and included pages a final one for includes ("includes").
As for uploads, yep, just under the posting box when you're writing a post, on the bottom left there should be a blue link that says "click here to upload", though only gif, jpeg and txt type files are supported (though there may be a post limit on it - i.e. that you need to have made X number of posts before you get the option to upload.
The other alternative for other file types is to upload the file to your web space and then link to the file from your post.
_____________________________
~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~
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stevethebrain
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RE: animation without GIFs - 7/31/2009 18:53:57
nice tutorial
I now how to create a SWF file out of my flash doc. I'm assumming it stays a SWF file when I publish in Flash (I observed a color change of the file from red to grey)
confussed on when I try to save flash only allows a FLA file?
couple ?s step 4. I don't know how to insert this code? so I just copied it to the FP page so now I have the code displayed on FP page
http://ieat4re.150m.com/page4.htm the flash doc timing is way off it's just for practice and learning.
step 5.Type in the address of the HTML file in your browser ?do I type in the address bar?
this is all new to me using 2 differnt types of web building software together I understand only the basics of FP and only a little flash mainly just layers so far.
been reading and studying tutorials however the lingo will take time to understand. like now I know the storage file (folder I create is named the domain) just learned it's called the root directory.
Thanks Womble
Flash in HTML
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flash Embedded in HTML
After creating a Flash movie you choose File > Save As from the top menu to save your movie. Save the file as "Somefilename.fla".
To embed the Flash movie you just made into an HTML page, you should go back to your Flash program and do the following steps:
Step 1
Choose File > Open. Open a Flash movie you have created.
Step 2
Choose File > Export Movie.
Step 3
Name the file "somefilename.swf". Choose the location where the file is to be stored (in your Web folder). Click OK.
Step 4
Open the HTML page where you want to insert your Flash movie. Insert this code:
<object width="550" height="400">
<param name="movie" value="somefilename.swf">
<embed src="somefilename.swf" width="550" height="400">
</embed>
</object>
Note: This is the minimum code you need to embed a Flash movie in a browser. A broken icon will appear on the Web page if the user does not have the Flash plug-in installed.
Note: In the code above there is both an <embed> tag and an <object> tag. This is because the <object> tag is recognized by Internet Explorer, and Netscape recognizes the <embed> tag and ignores the <object> tag.
Step 5
Type in the address of the HTML file in your browser and look at your first Flash movie.
< Message edited by stevethebrain -- 7/31/2009 19:29:09 >
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womble
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RE: animation without GIFs - 8/1/2009 7:31:26
It looks as though you've copied and pasted the code for the Flash from the tutorial into the design view in FP (you need to paste it into the HTML code itself either in 'split' or 'code' view (looking at the page source of your test page there are some character entities where <, > and " should be in the code). Also, you need to customise the code with the height and width of your Flash movie rather than the values given in the code in the tutorial (they're just examples) and also put the file name of your SWF file rather than "somefilename.swf".
It's a while since I used FP, so I can't remember offhand now exactly how you switch into the different views, but if you have a look in the help files for FP it'll tell you (or press the F1 key for help).
I'm not sure why your Flash software would only let you save as an FLA file - again, either check out the software's help section or you'll probably find some documentation on how to do things either on the software's website, or the software may have a support forum.
The address in the address bar of your browser will either be the location of the file on the server, so will start with "http://..." if you've uploaded it onto a server, or if you're viewing the file locally on your computer, the location of the file on your computer, which usually starts with "file:///C:/" (the rest of the file path depends on the directory structure on your computer). It's usually easier, rather than typing the whole file path in if you're viewing the file locally, to either copy and paste the file path from the address bar in Windows Explorer if you're using Windows XP and add the file name onto the end of it, or simply to locate the file in Explorer and double-click it to open it in the browser, or right-click it with your mouse and click "Open" in the context menu that appears, which will open HTML files in the default browser, rather than having to type the whole file path out.
_____________________________
~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~
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stevethebrain
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RE: animation without GIFs - 8/1/2009 9:48:18
cool I just learned a little code insertion. http://ieat4re.150m.com/page4.htm
I'm not real interested in spending alot of time learning to write code, for right now just having a little fun w/ modern techonolgy and let the software write the code.
as far as the resizing of the image is this for clarity? I just surrounded the image w. dots then dragged to a larger size? also this image was done w/ a low resolution camera.3mega I now have a 7Mega
Womble I'm thinking that flash is just a portion of a website like the way I've been using GIFs?
or is it for building an intire page.
I'm thinking that you build a website w/ like frontpage or dreamweaver then enhance it w/ the flash?
then to really enhance the flash the photoshop is used.
I was able to save the flash as a SWF file by renaming the extension.
Thanks Womble for the helpfull advice.
< Message edited by stevethebrain -- 8/1/2009 9:59:00 >
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womble
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RE: animation without GIFs - 8/5/2009 12:02:27
Having the software write the code for you's all well and good until something goes wrong and you have to spend hours trying to figure out what's causing the problem. Unfortunately not all browsers behave the same and interpret code the same, so sometimes things look different on different browsers or don't line up on different browsers. Again, knowing something about the underlying code can really speed up fixing the problem. Knowing HTML isn't essential with the WYSIWYG editors that are available these days, but learning a little can be incredibly helpful. FP isn't infallible, and being a Microsoft product tends to work best with other Microsoft products (i.e. Internet Explorer), and sites created with FP can run into problems for visitors using other browsers (which is an increasing share of the browser market) unless you test sites on the various different browsers in common usage.
With image size, you should always use an image of the size you want it to show up at is the general rule. If you have a small image and you're resizing it, depending on the image, resizing it upwards can leave you with a blurred and low quality image. What you're actually asking FP to do if you're resizing images in the 'design' view is asking the HTML to resize the image for you by altering the size the image displays at. You're not actually resizing the image itself. It's always best to do any resizing you need to do on images in your graphics program before brining them into FP. On the other hand, if you have a large image, but you want it smaller, if you're asking the browser to display the image at a smaller size, the image is still on the server at the larger size, taking up a correspondingly large amount of disk space, the browser still has to load the large image - it just displays it smaller, so again you're wasting resources. Pages will take longer to load if the browser's having to load large images, and you're also using more bandwidth, which may not matter if you site's only getting a small number of visitors, but if your site's attracting a lot of visitors bandwidth is going to be an issue, so you need to minimise the size of the files the browser's having to load.
It's not so much the resolution of the camera that matters, but the resolution of the image itself. I still use one camera that's only a 3 megapixel camera, but the photos from it are perfectly acceptable. Usually you wouldn't use an image that's more than a resolution of around 300dpi on screen anyway, because you're not going to get any more detail using a higher resolution than that displayed on a screen, so it's wasting space and bandwidth, so using an image straight from a camera isn't recommended. My graphics programs are set by default for images of 96dpi (unless I manually change it), which is perfectly acceptable for the web.
Flash can be used for entire pages (though there's still underlying HTML that tells the web browser what part of the page does what), and websites can be built using entirely an image (again though there's HTML underlying it) - usually images are sliced by a graphics program and recompiled by the browser, with the underlying HTML creating hotspots on the image that lets you interact with the page.
Flash can enhance a page, but it's rarely necessary to use it for a whole page. It can be useful for navigation effects, but on the other hand rollover buttons can be created that are just as effective using FP and the rollovers it creates using Javascript (and indeed you can create javscript rollovers with scripts from other sources - many websites online have scripts available for rollover effects, such as Dynamic Drive), and you don't necessarily have to know javascript to be able to use them, just to be able to copy and paste into the code, which again is where knowing the basics of HTML is useful) , or CSS. My first site used the FP rollovers for navigation, but I then discovered that I could create the same effect with a wider range of navigation buttons. I later learned how I could recreate the same effect using CSS, only now, having learned a lot about HTML/CSS and about graphics and the graphics programs I use, as well as a couple of programming languages, I can create just about any graphics effect I want. These days I very rarely even use Javascript though, and tend to rely on plain HTML/CSS, and can get similar effects using files that aren't half as big and have pages that load much faster and save me space on the server.
On your test page where you have the flash movie with the car on for example, though you can use Flash to animate a picture, where you've just got a string of photos you want to display you can use a Javascript, which like Flash, can also do some transition effects, and possibly with a smaller file size than using Flash.
quote:
I'm thinking that you build a website w/ like frontpage or dreamweaver then enhance it w/ the flash?
then to really enhance the flash the photoshop is used.
It's largely a matter of personal choice how you use graphics. Personally I very rarely use Flash (I can only think of one site I used a Flash banner on) and I tend to use graphics very sparingly. On the current site I'm working on, the home page has only 3 graphics used on it - one's the background graphic (a small file which tiles all the way across the screen), and the site's logo. All the rest of the page is text, and text effects. On other sites I might use more graphics, but I rarely use more than a handful of graphics unless it's something like a photo gallery page. As I said though, how you use graphics is largely a matter of personal choice, and there's no right or wrong way really.
< Message edited by womble -- 8/6/2009 10:29:19 >
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~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
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stevethebrain
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RE: animation without GIFs - 8/6/2009 8:12:40
eventually I'll be forced to learn to write HTML code for right now I want to
learn the basics.
I will plan on resizing the images however I have just observed that when changing
a Flash FLA. file into a Flash.SWF file it has the same effect that JPG. to GIF. has
lessening the clairity.
or is FP lessening the clairity of the Flash files?
will Dreamweaver cure this clairty issue if I want nice clear Flash animation?
I purchased Macromedia about 4 years ago and lost interest real quick mainly
because were I was building the websites I did'nt have the internet I thought
a DW site had to be published on the net to preview work (unlike FP where I could
preview work before uploading to net).
I now understand in Flash publish does'nt mean upload to net to preview work but to
save kindof.
? I'm assuming that publish in DW has the same meaning where I don't
have to upload a web site just to preview work?
so did I jepp myself w/ the 7megapixal camera since I never use a image this big?
my camera is adjusted to intially take the image in 7M but then I'm compressing
that by about 7Xs down to doc.s size?
When you say many websites online have scripts I'm assumming a script is allready
written HTML code for a spesific function?
Dynamic Drive looks interesting I'll look into it, for right now I'm studying the
basics of Flash banners.
Thanks for the surport
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womble
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RE: animation without GIFs - 8/6/2009 11:07:42
quote:
ORIGINAL: stevethebrain
so did I jepp myself w/ the 7megapixal camera since I never use a image this big?
It depends. The resolution of cameras is increasing all the time, and cameras with more features are getting comparatively cheaper all the time. I'm looking at upgrading my camera at the moment as it's really not that good for sports shots, which I need for one of the sites I maintain, but for the sort features I'm looking for now, the sort of price I'm looking at is actually only marginally higher than I paid for my last camera. Though you might not need huge resolutions online, you still need a decent resolution for printing photos. The higher the resolution, the better the finished quality.
The problem with jpegs (though they are very useful) is that the compression they use is "lossy" - i.e. the algorithms they use permanently lose some data from the image that can't be recovered. Other image formats such as gif and png use a non-lossy compression, but each type of image format has pros and cons and has different situations in which they're most suitable.
Also, because jpeg is a lossy format, if you start out with a higher quality image you're going to end up with an image that doesn't show as much noticable degradation. If you're only using small images on a website any degradation and stray pixels wouldn't be as noticable, but the larger the size of image you use on a website, the more noticable degradation will be, so if you're using large images online a camera with a higher megapixel may produce photos that look better.
quote:
When you say many websites online have scripts I'm assumming a script is allready
written HTML code for a spesific function?
The scripts are Javascript (or other programming languages in some cases) that can just be copied and pasted into the HTML code, and do whatever they're written to do. You don't need to necessarily know Javascript to use them (though sometimes some small elements may have to be changed to fit in with your site (similar to the way you have to put a size in the Flash code)) but you need to know where to put them in the code, hence the need to understand some basic HTML.
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~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~
~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~
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