[thelist] Rough Animation with Bitmaps in Flash

Geoff Sheridan web2k2 at premonition.co.uk
Wed Feb 12 09:41:01 CST 2003


>I'm working with Flash 4 and I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the
>bitmap vs. vector rendering. My experience dictates that using bitmaps and
>doing motion blurs, fades, movement, etc. really eats up the processor time
>and increases the RAM requirements. However, the vector simulacrums are
>leagues faster and 'lighter.' You can tell the difference easily on a slower
>box.
>
>I guess what I want to know is if you have a bitmap in Flash, will Flash
>take over and covert it to a vector image so it can animate more easily?

Sorry, but you'll have to redraw the picture in a vector graphics
program (Flash, Freehand, Illustrator) making sure only to use vector
tools. Motion blurs aren't *really* possible in vector graphics, but
there are ways of approximating them.

You are right that it improved speed, particularly download speed as
vector graphics eat less bandwidth. But you'll need different tools
to create and modify them.

Vector images are made of mathmatically determined lines (vectors)
while bitmap images are made of pixels. Vector graphics are
infinitely scalable - but they don't have the ability to look like
photographic images.

If you make the artwork in Flash, it will normally remain vector.

HTH

Geoff



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