preloading one scene at a time

gwx03 · September 5th, 2003, 09:29 AM

Because I've got a website that is around 600KB, it would take quite long on a 56K to load it all in one shot at the start. Instead, I prefer to load it scene by scene... as in.... go to scene 1 and in scene 1, it will launch the preload the sequence and verify if ONLY scene 1 is loaded. If scene 1 is completely loaded, it goes to an play a particular frame. Flash then goes to the frame and plays the animation and displays the rest of scene 1. Lets say the user selects Scene 2. What will happen is that the preload sequence will start again, ( this time residing in Scene 2 ), to verify if scene 2 is loaded completely before playing the rest of it.

I've seen this in many sites, such as netdogz.com ( plz go there to get a better picture of what im talking about )..... I think it should be possible to do so but may be quite difficult???? i would like to hear from u if it is possible to work out such a preloader....

PS : If you really don't get what I'm talking about... then please tell me in your reply. I can show you some kind of a design plan ( I can plot it on a piece of paper and then scan it in and post the image on my webbie ).

Thanks in advance for any solutions.

u ppl have been very helpful

gwx03 · September 5th, 2003, 09:50 AM

ok... ive drawn the main idea. http://www31.brinkster.com/gwxthebest/idea.jpg
Also, as I've got to finish the project in 2 days' time... is it possible to finish it within 2 days ( provided I can spend up to 4 hours per day doing this ? )

by the way, hope you care to download the 100kb image if you don't know what Im talking about or want a clearer picture

courtjester · September 5th, 2003, 11:34 AM

Your picture doesn't show up... It says access denied. I know what you mean on the scenes thing, but 600kb isn't that big. I am sorry, but I don't know how to make a whole program load, much less a scene, i just wanted you to know your pic didn't show.

gwx03 · September 5th, 2003, 11:57 AM

it works alright here... but maybe http://www31.brinkster.com/gwxthebest/idea.html
would work. guess brinkster does not allow direct linking to images or something...

gwx03 · September 6th, 2003, 05:37 AM

i think chances are that CANNOT be done and that I done it all the wrong way .....

What happens at www.netdogz.com is that each portion of the site loads dynamically from an external SWF... that could also explain why the background sound plays seamlessly along the website...[xx(]

I don't have time to redo anyway if the only way to do it is through loading external movies so please tell me if you know how it can be done ( preloading one scene @ a time ).

Webforumz Staff · September 6th, 2003, 07:59 AM

You were right to pick up on the seperate files. That is how the music plays across the background and new sections can be loaded, etc, etc. This is the best way to do things.

Ok... Because all the scenes are located in one file, it is impossible to load one scene at a time. The browser loads the file and that is that.

It is however, possible to detect if a scene has been loaded and this should be ok in your book?

Code:

ifFrameLoaded (200) {
    gotoAndPlay(1);
}

ifFrameLoaded allows you to find out if a frame of number (200) has been loaded. If it has, then you can .... do whatever you want... in this case gotoAndPlay(1);

Using this you should be able to specify the number of frames for each scene and put this loader in each. You can keep looping back to this frame to keep checking that the scene is loaded.

Hope you understand, if not I'll rustle up a demo file :wink:

gwx03 · September 6th, 2003, 09:43 AM

I understand what you mean... so am I right to say that the loading and preloading of the various sections of www.netdogz.com was done using the dynamic loading of external movies? thanks 4 taking the time 2 reply anyway

Webforumz Staff · September 6th, 2003, 01:06 PM

Yep, you're completly right. Which means that nothing is loaded until you hit the button and then flash monitors the loading and tells that file to play when it's done.