Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

[Corey]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

Here's the exact same thing except done in Swish (Includes Swish source file) instead of Flash, what a breeze it was, took less than one minute to build and export, only 2 actions...

http://www.indigorose.com/temp_web/swishvid.zip

Have a great holiday! [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Geoffh]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

thanks for this feedback guys. I will try this too.
Going on vacation today, woo hoo! but will try when I get back.
Thanks again.

Geoff

[Corey]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

OK well let's look at this, but just to preface I bet you could do this pretty easily in Swish too in terms of non-flasher accessibilty...

But OK here's the thing, the text file is not really necessary, you can get totalFrames , etc. but how will you use that info to stretch your main.swf so that the fscommand lands precisely on the last frame of the video swf? I don't know of any way to create or remove frames programmatically using actionscript... If you know of a way to do that then you could easily do that.

Or you could also do that on a server using PHP and ming functions... Or you could use something like swfc to create the shell .swf on the fly too... (http://www.quiss.org/swfc/swfc.html)

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[AGRO]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

That is a good idea Corey. If you load the movie externally into a target empty movie clip you can create the fscommands. Very good idea. You could take it one step further for the people who don't have flash.

Someone who has flash could make a swf that is blank that you could load a movie clip into externally, and also you could load the number of frames externally also from a text(.txt) file....So the users without Flash could just edit the text file for the desired amount of frames until the fscommand launches. Then the flash .swf would load the number of frames from the text file, and load the movie from Sorenson at the same time. Hummmmmmmm??

What are your thoughts on this? I think this is "do-able"?

[Corey]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

OK here's an example. I'm sure it's possible in Swish but since more people here use Flash I did it in Flash this time. It's real easy... OK so I:

1. Created a little sample video and compressed it to .swf using Sorenson Squeeze. I named this .swf "video" then I placed it in my AMS project's Distribution Folder.

2. My movie is 77 frames long, 320 X 240, 15 fps so I created a new movie in Flash which matches, i.e. is 77 frames long, 15 fps, and is 320 X 240 with keyframes set on the first and last frames.

3. On frame 1 I use actionscript to create a new (blank) movie clip and then load the video.swf into it. (this doesn't re-compress your video)

4. On frame 77 I place the fscommand, i.e. "end".

Then it's just a matter of treating it in AMS like any other .swf with a fscommand on the last frame except when you set up your flash object (pointed to Distribution/main.swf) you must check the "external reference" checkbox.

That's it, real easy, you can get a zip file here which includes all the source files including Flash .fla: http://www.indigorose.com/temp_web/flashvid.zip

BTW guys, want to see Wildform, Techsmith, Roboflash, and Sorenson add capability to insert FSCommands in your .swfs? Email them! Tell them what you want/need. If enough of you email...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Geoffh]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

This is exactly what I wanted to do. Add an FSCommand to a Techsmith Camtasia screen capture saved as an swf.

Anyone know how you do the shell thing? is it possible in Swish?

[Corey]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

No, but I think it will be pretty easy to add FSCommand to any .swf, use a shell .swf and then load your video in dynamically or whatever...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[yoni]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

thanks, and is there any way that I'm not aware of to launch an action at the end of a flash file without using an FS command?

[eric_darling]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

Yoni, there's no way to add or edit an FS Command inside Sorenson Squeeze. If you find a way to do this without having Flash MX recompress your video, let us know!

[Corey]

Re: Flash, Sorenson and FScommands

Once you have your video in Flash actionscript can be freely added, including FSCommands. Additionally some 3rd party Flash video compression tools may offer insertion of FScommands although I'm not sure about that...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[yoni]

This question is mostly for those who have used Sorenson Squeeze to compress Quicktime movies into flash (eric_darling I'm looking at you) but if you know the answer, please let me know.

If I compress a file to SWF through Sorenson it gives me a wonderful looking file but with no FScommand possibilities. If I want to ad FScommands as far as I understand, I'd have to import the file into flash (in which case I'd want to use a .flv but that's besides the point) add my commands and then reexport through flash which does not do as good a job.

Is there anyway to add FScommands without diongthis and while maintaining the Sorenson quality?

Also all I'm looking to do is add a command at the end of the flash movie so that the next thing in my AMS project can happen (in this case application.exit action) Is there a way to do this without FScommands? Cause I'm stumped.

Thanks