Flash MX 2004 Games : Art to ActionScript

Chapter 6: Creating artwork for mobile devices
blending, extensive gradients and complex vectors. Experiment with combinations of tweens, key
frame animations and ActionScript-driven movement to produce the most efficient results. Test
animations frequently on your target phones whenever possible and remember that 505i phones
have a maximum swf file size limit of just 20 K.
Creating content for mobile devices
In 2003 the PocketPC market went over 10 million units and mobile phones were selling at the rate
of over 400 million units per year. Although only a handful of the mobile phones are Flash enabled
it is still a huge potential market waiting for the fun distraction of an enjoyable game. In Section 4
we will look in more detail at how to make games for these devices but in this chapter we are
considering the artwork implications. ‘Examples/Chapter06/Conker01.fla’ is a short animation
developed originally for the web. At only 56 K it is totally suited to the PocketPC but it uses
gradients and was originally designed to be seen at a resolution of 550 × 400. On the PocketPC
this is reduced to 240 × 268. A PocketPC has a full screen resolution of 240 × 320, in general.
When title and status bars are included this reduces the screen space to 240 × 268. The first step in
the optimization process was to resize the artwork, simply by turning the entire animation into a
symbol and resizing the lot. Then any artwork that ran off the edge throughout the animation was
deleted. The next step is to go through any complex artwork or symbols and reduce the number
of curves to suit the new screen size. Choose ‘Modify/Shape/Optimize...’. This opens the dialog
box shown in Figure 6.7.
Figure 6.7 Optimizing artwork
Using this technique a saving in the complexity of the artwork of around 35 per cent is not
unusual. This could mean a doubling of the frame rate. When doing the conversion it was also
seen that the large bulk of leaves that falls around frame 370, remains static from frame 380, but the
artist had copied the symbol on consecutive frames because some small leaves continued to drift
down. By moving the static content onto a layer that was unchanging Flash only ‘thinks’ about
the artwork that has a new keyframe on each move of the playback head. Don’t make Flash do
things it doesn’t need to do. After all the changes the file size had reduced to just 22 K and the
sustained frame rate had doubled. The overall optimization took around just 10 minutes and was
well worth the effort.
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