Appreciating ActionScript 3.0

Hi, Keith again. You may remember my last blog about how I was taking a class to (re)learn Flash. If not, you can read it here, https://www.antharia.com/blog/index.php?id=340. As it was the middle of the semester, I was only able to tell of my experiences with Flash before we were taught how to do things almost entirely in ActionScript. Now that the semester is near it's end and I've spent the last month learning and practicing ActionScript, I understand that it is a great tool for making online animations with small file sizes, when you don't make mistakes.

I'll start by mentioning that, as with most code, ActionScript is case sensitive. I've already lost count of how many times I've tested an animation and have it all messed up, only to realize that I forgot to capitalize one letter, or I accidentally capitalized a letter that wasn't supposed to be. I'll also mention that, again as with most code, maintaining simple/easy to remember naming convention for the objects/movie clips/sounds you are referring to is very important. It can get quite annoying trying to find what you called wrong amongst dozens of lines of code.

With that out of the way, let's go over how using ActionScript can create great looking animations, without the large file size. From what I understand from my professor, what makes Flash files so large is how the timeline stores data.  When you make an animation entirely in the timeline, you end up with, in some cases, hundreds of frames to animate. While his helps to see how each frame interacts with the progress of the animation, the data stored in each frame contains so much data that a simple two minute animation is too large for a lot of computers to handle online. I know there are many computers that wouldn't have a problem with this, but a lot of websites you would send these animations to have maximum file sizes they will accept. And depending on where the file is going to be used, the limit can be under 50kb. Yes, kilobytes, as in less than a megabyte. As in, there are still people using file sizes that small?

Yes, and ActionScript can make good animations at these small sizes. Again, this is from what I understand from my professor. From what I understand, by letting ActionScript control what happens when, the Flash file only has a few frames of animation. In some instances the professor showed, you can have a fully interactive Flash animation only use one frame. The small file size comes from the few number of frames and the fact that code is miniscule in terms of file size.

So all in all, I've been having fun making interactive animations from code. Albeit while also having an equal amount of stress accompanying any fun I have. But this kind of stress is invigorating, for me. Granted, this is probably because the ActionScript we're learning is the barest of bare bones, and we are making mini-animations and using ActionScript to control when these play. I'm sure I would be going nuts if I were to have to work with more advanced aspects of ActionScript, But, as I said in my last post, I work better looking at a screen of designs opposed to a screen of code. And while learning the different aspects of Flash and ActionScript has been fun, I feel I can apply my creativity better through static designs and images.

Posted by Keith Coburn on May 13, 2010 at 05:20 pm EST

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