Photoshop Shadow to Flash??

[damonc79]

Hi everyone, I'm a new member here, and just starting to delve into flash more. I've been using it off and on for years, but never did any cool or noteworthy stuff with it, so that's why I'm here, to learn :beam:

Now, I've run into a problem ... I have a file I'm working on in Photoshop, and I import it with a transparent background as a PSD into Flash ... the image has a shadow on it, but when it gets to flash, the shadow turns into a white glow!

Whats the problem?

TIA

[eyeinfinitude]

While in photoshop, save your file out as a png, by going to file > save for web and there should be a drop down menu to your right. Saving it out as a png will retain the shadow you created and then just import the png into flash. Welcome to the forum by the way. =)

EDIT: I put left when it should be on your right. :sure:

[damonc79]

Man, I love this forum already! Thanks a lot ... worked perfectly. I never had a reason to care about PNGs, but now they have become useful :beam:

[eyeinfinitude]

after working with flash for awhile, you'll realize that pngs will be your best friend. I'm glad it worked out for you. =)

[Shazmax]

Downside to .png's is that they cost you more in kb's. Something that I've found that's way better is to import illustrator files...downside to that - you need to know illustrator. You can come fairly close to emulating most of the effects of photoshop in illustrator....the basic effects anyways.

[lostinbeta]

They also cost you more in CPU resources if your image is going to be moving a lot (tweens, as, whatnot)

The processing of the partial transparent areas gets ya.


Depending on the size of course.

[damonc79]

dang it, i was wondering why the flash seemed to be going kind of slow when i put it on my web server and tested it out ... maybe i'll try that tutorial around here on creating a shadow in flash.

[lostinbeta]

Well it might be other things in your movie causing that.


My footer uses 3 .png images with partial transparency, and they move... does it go slow for you? (it doesn't for me)

[damonc79]

your's moves fine ... looks really cool too, btw.
my file is a much bigger than that though ...

[DDD]

slow movement could be attribute of your FPS....boost that up and see what happens.

[damonc79]

I had the fps set to the standard 12, but when I played the timeline in flash, it dropped to like 4

[DDD]

It will do that regardless....Up your fps to like 33 that is where I keep mine unless there is a specific reason to have slow motion

[damonc79]

I put the FPS at 33 ... it still seems to be running sluggishly. I have posted my progress so far at this address

http://www.damoncollins.com/sa/

It has the main swf file, with the movie of the girls linked externally, as well as the little headphone movie linked externally (it will be a music player movie eventually), and the big gray button on there was just to test out some scene transitioning stuff i was messing with.

Anyway, let me know if it seems slow to you.

[lostinbeta]

Doesn't seem slow at all to me.


Maybe its your system...


I run...
750Mhz AMD Duron
128Mb Ram


And it runs fine on mine.

[damonc79]

Does the black fade in of the background seem choppy? It just doesnt look very smooth to me

[lostinbeta]

Looks fine to me.

[DDD]

It seems okay to me. DId you optimize your bgrd Images???

[mdipi]

Smooth for me...

[damonc79]

heh, I surely didnt optimize the background image! :o
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I totally forgot ... just chopped the main swf from 192k to 28k :beam:


Originally posted by 3d-iva
It seems okay to me. DId you optimize your bgrd Images???

[lostinbeta]

W00t! :trout:

[damonc79]

great, now the server my site is on seems to be down .... just great :sigh:

[DDD]

just chopped the main swf from 192k to 28k

Cool man glad I can help. Most peeps think that flash compression is good enough. I drag all my images thru fireworks first then import them in to flash.

[lostinbeta]

I save my images at the highest quality from Photoshop, import them into Flash and adjust the properties as needed.


Probably not always the best thing to do, but if I use images in my Flash it is usually just a test thing and I am not concerned on fil size.

[damonc79]

Originally posted by lostinbeta
I save my images at the highest quality from Photoshop, import them into Flash and adjust the properties as needed.

Thats what I did to drop the file size down ... I didnt optimize it in ImageReady (like i would do with regular web graphics), i just adjusted the image quality in flash. It seems you get the same results, and more control over how much optimization you want, right inside of flash.