Flash Limits

[senocular]

I think its a good idea to set some known limits to Flash - things which are good to be aware of for future reference and if not, something to just be impressed or enamored with ;)

here are some things Ive jotted down recently. Ill add more as I think of them


==============================================
Flash limits


[DOCUMENT]
size:
-width: 1 to 2880
-height: 1 to 2880

drawing extents within:
-width: -720 to document width + 720
-height: -720 to document height + 720

-grid spacing: 7.2 to 288
-frame rate: .01 to 120
-frames: 16000
-layers: 16000
-movieclip instances: 16000
-loaded movies (in levels): 16000


[MOVIECLIP]
drawing extents within:
-width: -720 to 720
-height: -720 to 720 (1440x1440)

-_xscale/_yscale values: ~ 3276800
-_alpha values: 256
-_alpha steps: ~ .4 (don't increment _alpha below that value)
-_x/_y steps: .05 (don't increment _x/_y below that value)
-_rotation: -180 to 180 (you can set it to values beyond these but will revert to a value in that range)
-_rotation steps: .1 (_rotation wont be seen in increments below that value)
-attached clips before drastic attachMovie speed drop: ~ 800-1000 (common in grid creation; creating new clips to attach groups of clips, like each row, to will reduce the slowdown)


[TEXT]
-characters in a textfield: ~63000 (?)
-rotation of dynamic or input textfields w/o embedded fonts or static w/ device fonts: 0 (no rotation)
-max size of POST data (loadVars and XML Objects etc): around 64k
-characters for URLs set in Character panel: 127


[SCRIPTING]
depths:
-depths of existence: -16384 to 2130690045
(createEmptyMovieClip can surpass these values in creation but not always accurate
max reliable: 2147483647, min reliable: -2147483648)
-removable depths: 0 to 1048575

-recursive function call levels: 256
-loop calls: processor dependant, 15 or 20 seconds until timeout


[MISC]
-Flash Player zoom: 2000%
-line thickness (Flash authoring): .1 to 10
-line thickness (AS): 0 to 256 (increments of 1; 0 is hairline)
-size of imported bitmap: 5x5 minimum
-shape hints: 0 to 26
-blending: up to 24 layers per pixel

[AVM2]

datatype limits:
-uint: 0 to 4,294,967,295 (2^32 - 1)
-int: -2,147,483,648 (-2^31) to 2,147,483,647 (2^31 - 1)

BitmapData:
-max total pixels FP10: 16,777,215 (2^24 - 1) (see here (http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=1426))
-max dimensions FP9: 2880 x 2880px

[ABC] (ActionScript bytecode)

-max unique bytecode instructions for the VM: 256

-String size: 1,073,741,823 bytes (2^30 - 1) (hard to quantify a character length in a multibyte charset)

-function max parameters: 1,073,741,823 (2^30 - 1)
-class implements interface max: 1,073,741,823 (2^30 - 1)

==============================================

suggestions welcome and will be added to this list :)

[Coolian]

nice, nice....waiting for more...

[bit-101]

minimum _alpha or change in _alpha: approx 0.4

since _alpha is stored in 256 shades from 0-100.

100/256=0.390625

if you set alpha to .3 it will round off to 0. if you continue adding .3 to it, it will continue to round off to 0 and never change. if you add .4 to it, it will gradually go up.

[upuaut]

nice info guys. Some things I was really interested in knowing here. Thanks.

[theworldinside]

you cant import an image less then 5x5 i think...

i tried 1x1 and it wouldnt let me

[senocular]

Originally posted by theworldinside
you cant import an image less then 5x5 i think...

i tried 1x1 and it wouldnt let me

Flash 5 could do 1x1... in Win 9.x. heh. I based a whole contest on that way back when, though some people couldnt import the gif and those running 2000+, Flash crashed when selecting the image in the library :)

good one ;) Ill say 5x5 now until someone confirms otherwise.

[subquark]

What about size limits in an mc with scrollpane component?

I tried to paste a five page text block into an mc with the component attached and it would not take it all, could do something like three pages okay. Weird?!?

[kirupa]

Wow this is quite nice - shall I add link this post sen as a quick link under Flash MX basics?

Cheers!
Kirupa :sure:

[senocular]

hmmm I dont know... I dont think Ive ever come across any of these issues in first learning Flash - so I dont know how concerned youd need to be with them when in your 'basics' phase of learning. Interesting enough otherwise though ;)

[djazz]

hey kirupa! I think u should add this post to the basic link in flash mx, good and insteresting idea!

[fluid_0ne]

Movie Clip can't be content of itself on flash's workspace ;) sen (try to put symbol1 into symbol1)... tried to put it in with every idea i got...

[senocular]

you can do that at runtime with attachMovie. You cant do it in Flash because it would cause an infinite loop of a movieclip containing itself... containing itself... containing itself... which wouldnt (and isnt) really possible for flash to concieve
:)

[fluid_0ne]

indeed, bu if i would resize it to smaller one?? it would be like 0o. and smaller until it disappears...
crazy...

[sinfiniti]

actually, you should never increment a number by anything smaller than 0.5 - there is a bug in the flash player!!
i don't know the number of iterations, because it's different for different numbers (any floating point number with values smaller than 0.5 after the integer).
try this in flash 5 or MX:
nCount = 0;
for (var ii = 0; ii<100; ii++) {
trace(nCount += 0.4);
}

the values in the output window will end in 999999.
for some of you math/physics people out there who need accurate floating point numbers watch out for this.
:)
jeremy

[senocular]

its not like you should never increment by small values
;)

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/roundoff_error.htm

[sinfiniti]

no one has ever been able to tell me why that error occurs!
thank you, senocular, for pointing that article out. i actually ran into the problem when i was using a substring of a number as a string.
:)
jeremy

[RageW0lf]

Max zoom = 2000%

[Hawk]

rage, the website inovation.com... is it yours? if so... you should put the .swf height and width because it will just resize depending on how big the browser window is. and the larger it is, the more choppy... just a tip

hawk

[pithcell]

hey senoc,
got a flash limit q? for ya. just got helped out big time by grim and indo, but the three of us couldnt understand why when you have an image outide the BIG grey area the image is completely blurred (as in the case of creating a sliding menu) but when you make that image into a mc then it works...wondering if its a glitch or something

thanks
P

[sbeener]

smallest _x / _y movement = .05px

in fact, all values assigned to those properties are rounded to the nearest 20th of a pixel.

[Loudboy]

thanks for the info...was really helpful!

[zerium]

Originally posted by subquark
What about size limits in an mc with scrollpane component?

I tried to paste a five page text block into an mc with the component attached and it would not take it all, could do something like three pages okay. Weird?!?

you could work around this with importing the text in a flat file, I created a 1.4 meg text file (320 page word document) and flash imported it into a dynamic text area with scroller.

www.zerium.com (http://www.zerium.com)

[eyezberg]

Not necessarily a rule, but better stick to it:
never _alpha 0-100% or 100-0, always stop at 99%
with bitmaps and/or video (MX), else you'll
experience the 1px "bitmap shift"...
And 99% really looks the same..

[zerium]

hey thanks for that I'm currently working on a project and I noticed that and wondered what it was.

on a side note:

this isnt really a limitation of flash but a limitation of most computers out there. Since designers usually have fast machines it's important to remember that when you use alpha effects the load you place on ordinary computers is pretty large and alpha fades get choppy.

If you use tints then you (generally) dont have this problem since there is no video card requirement to do transparency using tints.

http://www.zerium.com

[titter]

Not really a limit but maybe something u might hav missed....

When importing a jpg file, even if broken apart flash will cut a 1px off the edge. I noticed this when working on my current site. The very bottom pixel edge had a dotted black line, when published it was cut. I added 1 more pixel to the jpg and it came back...interesting?

[yerzad]

Thanks bob....its really important to know this kind of things..before we begin,

THaks..again,
Looking for more like this..

[deamothul]

alwayz nice 2 know this kinda info...


peace,

[Wilson777]

Nice infos guys...

But you don't talk about the video importation/playing stuff ??

Anybody has some specs about that ?

Longuest video playable ?
Biggest size in pixels ?
Biggest size in Megs ?
Download time / Megs ?

ect...

Thanx !

[lostinbeta]

I would assume the dimensions limit would follow the same limit as Flash with its viewable area.

Biggest size in megs is most likely whatever you want, but the bigger the file size the longer the load time (naturally)

The above two are just assumptions, I have never imported video into Flash so I don't know exactly how that works.

The length of the video you play... no clue.


Download time depends on the modem and viewers computer not Flash.

[senocular]

from what I understand a lot of that has to do with computer/system RAM. I cant confirm that and really only have that suspicion (based on something Ive heard in the past). Some figures would be nice though ;)

[Clown Staples]

what about a maximum _xscale or _yscale for an individual clip? Or is that something that can be figured out from what has already been said?

[Clown Staples]

i got it to 3276800 or so before it started behaving strange.

[senocular]

thanks clownstaples, Ill add that in :)

[lostinbeta]

I did my own test and I got up to 4000000 before I stopped and experienced no difficulties :-\

[senocular]

is that with rotation? There is a point where lines begin to be drawn outside of the refresh box so any kind of motion or rotation leaves artifacts where the previously drawn image isnt completely cleared...

Similarly bitmaps can smear at long sizes...

Im not sure when that happnes though ...

[lostinbeta]

no, mine had no rotation happening, it was just a block that was scaled.


Another thing I noticed, and I don't know why it does it, when you use the brush tool, if you create a line long enough it gets a little spike at the end that just jets out. Im assuming thats a bug rather than a limit though ;)

[senocular]

yeah Flash is a little glitchy with extremes - I think this has to do with its process in estimations for performance.

[lostinbeta]

Maybe some day they will work on that ;)

[chinabean]

hmm yeah this is cool

[Thinker2501]

I love Kirupa just for these sort of random facts :thumb: Here is a limit I think we need to find: how many flash developers actually hit these limits and if so, what the heck are they doing? :esmirk:

[adityagaddam]

well not really a limit but something nice to know for those frustrated with some textboxes not showing up text..:sigh:

If you have "bold" on and you are trying to load htmlText into the textbox, it wont show up for some reason.. just found that out today. :P

-Aditya

[ahmed]

it shows up, just need to make sure your embedding the bold version too when using it :sigh:

[lostinbeta]

Yeah, I remember when I went through that issue, I almost went insane. It took me a few days to finally find out that you have to embed the individual normal, bold, and italic versions of the font.

[adityagaddam]

lol sorry about that.. :P
should I just keep my post in there or delete it?

Thanks,
Aditya

[reverendflash]

they are considered different versions of the same font...

when you install a new font family, you will install several, sometimes as much as 9 diff fonts...

...and the client always seems to use one that you don't own...

;)

Revhttp://www.aulman.com/rev.gif

[Flashmani]

wow.....its great which i waited for this...


actually i ask this flash limits question in some other forum but i got here...

thanks guys


flashmani

[mond]

this can be added

You can use up to 26 shape hints.

[NeoDreamer]

I actually hit the 16000 frame limit and had to cut my movie short. It was an 8 minute long movie for a telecommunications company in China.

[NeoDreamer]

It all depends on your framerate. I used 33 FPS. And I say "approximately" 8 minutes.

[asu80]

I actually hit the 16000 frame limit and had to cut my movie short. It was an 8 minute long movie for a telecommunications company in China.

oh u can try another method here
http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80648

[frost_oni]

hey, how about the sound limitations?

[asu80]

hey, how about the sound limitations?
if u are referring to the sounds limitation in video, here it is.

my video (more than 3 minutes) is ok because i have mix the video and the sound in adobe premier first. Then convert it to *.flv video and embedded it in flash. i think the problem with video and sounds (more than 3 minutes) is when u add the sounds in the flash.

http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80648 (http://showthread.php?t=80648)

[lorenelks]

Hi:
Are you limited to a max amount of height in a movie clip? I have this
scrolling pane with a movieclip in it. When you scroll the pane, the mc inside scrolls up or down.

The mc inside has text. I can't seem make it taller than 4000. Is this a physical limit of Flash.

Is there a more efficient way to make a scroll pane (window), that will scroll a movieclip through it?


Thanks,
Loren



I think its a good idea to set some known limits to Flash - things which are good to be aware of for future reference and if not, something to just be impressed or enamored with ;)

here are some things Ive jotted down recently. Ill add more as I think of them


==============================================
Flash limits


[DOCUMENT]
size:
-width: 1 to 2880
-height: 1 to 2880

drawing extents within:
-width: -720 to document width + 720
-height: -720 to document height + 720

-grid spacing: 7.2 to 288
-frame rate: .01 to 120
-frames: 16000
-layers: 16000
-movieclip instances: 16000
-loaded movies (in levels): 16000


[MOVIECLIP]
drawing extents within:
-width: -720 to 720
-height: -720 to 720 (1440x1440)

-_xscale/_yscale values: ~ 3276800
-_alpha values: 256
-_alpha steps: ~ .4 (don't increment _alpha below that value)
-_x/_y steps: .05 (don't increment _x/_y below that value)
-_rotation: -180 to 180 (you can set it to values beyond these but will revert to a value in that range)
-_rotation steps: .1 (_rotation wont be seen in increments below that value)
-attached clips before drastic attachMovie speed drop: ~ 800-1000 (common in grid creation; creating new clips to attach groups of clips, like each row, to will reduce the slowdown)


[TEXT]
-characters in a textfield: ~63000 (?)
-rotation of dynamic or input textfields w/o embedded fonts or static w/ device fonts: 0 (no rotation)
-max size of POST data (loadVars and XML Objects etc): around 64k
-characters for URLs set in Character panel: 127


[SCRIPTING]
depths:
-depths of existence: -16384 to 2130690045
(createEmptyMovieClip can surpass these values in creation but not always accurate
max reliable: 2147483647, min reliable: -2147483648)
-removable depths: 0 to 1048575

-recursive function call levels: 256
-loop calls: processor dependant, 15 or 20 seconds until timeout


[MISC]
-Flash Player zoom: 2000%
-line thickness (Flash authoring): .1 to 10
-line thickness (AS): 0 to 256 (increments of 1; 0 is hairline)
-size of imported bitmap: 5x5 minimum
-shape hints: 0 to 26


==============================================

suggestions welcome and will be added to this list :)

[jnbeck]

I ran into a limitation with exporting out files with a third party projector.

The flash player will not allow you to export a string over 30kb.

Screen Weaver Forums (http://www.screenweaver.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=72&sid=3b2d3fa9c3b0e2b37cbbccd862728846)

[vintage]

I made a slideshow that loads the pictures from a xml file.
I havent really experimented with it, but if I use more than 99 pictures, flash starts to freak and only load 3 pictures (piece of the xml)
so 100 is probably a limit ?



<mijnSlideShow>
<titel>slideshow 1</titel>

<foto>
<adres>toet.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>bla bla<verhaaltje />
</foto>
<foto>
<adres>meep.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>weep woei<verhaaltje />
</foto>
<foto>
<adres>blaat.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>hoppa<verhaaltje />
</foto>

<!-- 99 times <foto> jpg </foto> -->

</mijnSlideShow>

[Skarab]

I've got a movie clip that is about 2110 px wide, and when I try to get it to scroll, it hangs up before it scrolls all the way. Is this the limit mentioned in Loren's list above (720 to -720 for a limit of 1440)?

It's giving me grief!

[Ruben]

..so how about arrays? How many values before the player starts screwing up?

- Ruben

[Templarian]

... it wont. Arrays work in a way that getting the first value is as fast as getting the millionth. Although flash does use more cpu the more ram it uses so careful there.

[tolk]

smallest xscale/yscale step = >0.00000000000000710 <0.00000000000000711

[maheswari]

I got Flash9 compatibility problem. My course is working on Flash9 player. But when it comes to the assessment part the pages are not loading except the first page. can you give any idea.

Thanks and Regards,
Maheswari

[JoshuaJonah]

I made a slideshow that loads the pictures from a xml file.
I havent really experimented with it, but if I use more than 99 pictures, flash starts to freak and only load 3 pictures (piece of the xml)
so 100 is probably a limit ?



<mijnSlideShow>
<titel>slideshow 1</titel>

<foto>
<adres>toet.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>bla bla<verhaaltje />
</foto>
<foto>
<adres>meep.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>weep woei<verhaaltje />
</foto>
<foto>
<adres>blaat.jpg</adres>
<verhaaltje>hoppa<verhaaltje />
</foto>

<!-- 99 times <foto> jpg </foto> -->

</mijnSlideShow>
This isn't a limit of flash nor the XML loader, it's a limit of the flash player on your particular machine, you are hitting your memory limit as all the pictures are in memory, then it starts to go ary. If you had 4 gigs of memory, it probably wouldn't be having this issue. But the trick is to remove some photos, theres really no reason to have 99 photos visible at one time anyway:)

[pavanshinde]

Hi All,

I want to know what is the maximam size of movie clip a scrollpane component supports.

Plz anyone tell me...............Itz dam urgent.

Thanks in advance

[waywoodr]

It would be good to have the security limits for flash for future reference. Im not up to speed on those :puzzle:

[wes_design]

It would be good to have the security limits for flash for future reference. Im not up to speed on those :puzzle:

with flash 8 it's harder to do cross-domain


In files published for Flash Player 5 or earlier, there were no restrictions on cross-domain or subdomain access.

In files published for Flash Player 6, you could use the LocalConnection.allowDomain handler or System.security.allowDomain() method to specify permitted cross- domain access..

yeah that stuff would help ...

[jeckx2]

nice info guys. This topic is very intersting, tanx to the thread starter

[dug1138]

I'm building a sort of pan/zoom map viewer. It has a pan/zoom widget with a slider and a draggable highlighted area for navigation.

Here: http://iath.virginia.edu/~dr3f/timelinetest/ (http://iath.virginia.edu/%7Edr3f/timelinetest/)

(note: don't close the pan/zoom widget, or you'll have to refresh the page to get it back)

At "extreme magnification", areas of the UILoader (which contains the map image background) blank out in what seems like a rectangular pattern.

As zooming increases it seems that only a smaller and smaller rectangle of the image is displayed (usually close to the middle).

This "clipping" seems to always start once the UILoader passes 8,000 pixels in width.

Here's the code for the pan/zoomer ("zoom_pane" is the highlighted area over the "pan_zoom_map" in the widget):

var background_map:UILoader = new UILoader();
background_map.source = "map_of_rome.gif";
background_map.scaleContent = true;

var pan_zoom_slider:Slider = new Slider();
pan_zoom_slider.snapInterval = 1;
pan_zoom_slider.tickInterval = 1;
pan_zoom_slider.minimum = 1;
pan_zoom_slider.maximum = 100;

function panZoomSlideChange(e:SliderEvent):void
{
zoom_pane.reSize((e.value / 100) * pan_zoom_map_width, (e.value / 100) * pan_zoom_map_height);
background_map.setSize(Math.round((1 / (e.value / 100)) * background_map_max_zoom_out_width), Math.round((1 / (e.value / 100)) * background_map_max_zoom_out_height));
}

zoom_pane.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, ZoomPanePostion);

function ZoomPanePostion(e:Event):void
{
background_map.move(-(background_map_max_zoom_out_width * zoom_pane.x) / zoom_pane.width, -(background_map_max_zoom_out_height * zoom_pane.y) / zoom_pane.height);
}

....

Is there a limit to how big you can make a DisplayObject?

Is it 8,000 pixels?

Has anyone seen this behavior before.

Thanks, Doug

[tarwin]

Also posted @ http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2273126

Hi,

I'm currently working on a platform game that makes large use of hitTestPoint (AS3). On levels that I was making enemies that were too far off screen to start with seemed to just fall through the world before I got to them, but for levels my work-mate was making all was fine.

A quick look (just moving characters closer and further away from the player manually) gave me a limit of around 3500px off the screen. I then guessed that the levels that were working had the objects (ground) that was being hitTest against bitmapCached. I was correct, in my friends they were. So I did a little experiment.

AS2
---------------------------


mBox._x = -15000000;
onEnterFrame = ef;
function ef(){
trace(mBox._x+":"+mBox.hitTest(mBox._x+1, 100, true));
mBox._x-=10000;
}

AS3
----------------------------


mBox.x = -3000;
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, ef);
function ef(e:Event){
trace(mBox.x,mBox.hitTestPoint(mBox.x+1, 100, true));
mBox.x-=1;
}

I did this with and without bitmap caching on a box I drew on the stage. Interestingly the results I came up with were (almost) as follows.

With bitmap caching I could push the box off screen up to 16.7 million pixels. This is approx 2^24. After this it became erratic then totally disappeared from hitTests.

Without bitmap caching though I could only push the box 4096 (2^12) pixels off screen before I totally lost it.

I'm guessing this is something to do with vectors being able to be sub-pixel, but not sure. Hope this helps someone as it really left us stumped for quite a while.

[3pepe3]

With bitmap caching I could push the box off screen up to 16.7 million pixels. This is approx 2^24. After this it became erratic then totally disappeared from hitTests.

Without bitmap caching though I could only push the box 4096 (2^12) pixels off screen before I totally lost it.

I'm guessing this is something to do with vectors being able to be sub-pixel, but not sure. Hope this helps someone as it really left us stumped for quite a while.

4096 (2^12)... well this is also a limit for the height of the SWF embed on HTML...
I have a SWF that works like a background, menu and utilities on some blog; this blog will vary depending on the length of the post and comments. The problem is, that when the height of the html (document) is bigger or equal to 4096px and the SWF is resized to this value then all the bitmapDatas will disappear or they will behave very erratically (some alpha, and color variations).
I will set an if statement to set to true/false the property cacheAsBitmap depending on the height of the current document (html -div-)
Seems that this value was not randomly on my application. :)

[tinkutr]

That is great info

[IQAndreas]

Hm... Considering this thread started 6 years ago, has anything been updated (or limits expanded) with the newer versions of Flash?

This is a really useful source, and could do some good resurrected.

[Scythe]

Here's a limit I don't see up there. How many transparent shapes can you stack on top of each other and still have them display normally? I tried drawing a few shapes with alpha fills and lines and put them in movie clips, then kept pasting in place until the shapes near the bottom aren't transparent anymore, or disappear completely. Has anyone else experienced this? It seems that 23 is the limit.

[Krilnon]

Hm... Considering this thread started 6 years ago, has anything been updated (or limits expanded) with the newer versions of Flash?

This is a really useful source, and could do some good resurrected.
I put in the rather small section about AVM2 in during June of this year sometime, but I started working on it the day before I went on vacation, so I didn't have much of a chance to add anything. I might have time to think of some more at some point… we'll see how my free time turns out.

Feel free to post limits here and some mod will add them to the main post.

[Scythe]

excogitator posted this link in another thread:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/429163

Apparently Flash can only blend 24 layers together per pixel. I guess this means that for each pixel it starts looking through layers starting at the top and if it hasn't found a non-transparent layer after the first 23 then it skips past all the remaining transparent layers until it finds one, then uses that as the bottom layer. This is how shapes and bitmaps containing alpha transparency can disappear sometimes.

added

[Scythe]

Maximum amount of characters in a line of actionscript: 1022.

[aeneas]

Wow! really good info thanks for flash limits!

[Scythe]

Is there a newer thread for newer versions of Flash?

Anyway, this thread still seems useful. Here's the limits of x and y values for display objects in CS4.

Low: -107374182.4
High: 107374182.35