Header Sep
print this page
Latest News
My Rating Score
Login to rate page
Back

April 11, 2007
New Flash Lite tutorial series: part 1 creating efficient graphics

[Back]

 

First in our new series of Flash Lite tutorials for Sony Ericsson mobile phones, the "Creating Efficient Graphics for Adobe Flash Lite" tutorial gives some general getting started tips, presents the role of Adobe's Device Central CS3 software and explains how to maximize vector graphics in Flash Lite 1.1. This tutorial is authored by Chris Petty, Communications Director at BlueskyNorth Ltd, a Smashing Ideas company, who also wrote the "Getting started with Adobe Flash Lite 1.1 tutorial" published on Developer World in August 2006.

Download tutorial here>>

Here's an overview of this tutorial:

General considerations about Flash Lite 1.1
Chris Petty starts the tutorial by outlining a number of unique challenges that are presented when starting to develop Flash Lite content for mobile phones when compared to creating Flash assets for the web.

The phone's display is an important factor as this will have a major impact on how your animation with run and catering for different screen sizes requires additional planning. Chris Petty therefore recommends that you know which devices you are aiming to deploy your content to before you start production.

Adobe Device Central CS3
Within this tutorial the role that Adobe Device Central can play in the effective creation and management of Flash Lite projects is mentioned. This software suite represents an invaluable tool for the Flash Lite developer since it allows better coordination of resources created in different authoring environments, for example, Adobe Photoshop and Flash, as well as accurate emulation for a range of devices.

Chris Petty suggests that while final testing on actual mobile phones should always be part of your production schedule, Adobe Device Central allows you to take the guesswork out of development by giving you access to a range of performance data, helping inform our decisions at all stages. More information about Sony Ericsson phones and Adobe Device Central here>>

  

Creating efficient vector shapes, gradient fills and background elements
The main section of the tutorial covers how to create efficient vector shapes and Chris Petty guides you through the various steps and considerations that are needed.

One of the major advantages of developing in Flash Lite is the ability to use vector graphics, made up of lines, curves and points, as opposed to bitmap graphics made up of a grid of pixels. Vector graphics can be scaled without losing quality (very useful when designing for different screen resolutions) unlike bitmaps, which need to appear at their true size to prevent loss of quality. Chris Petty then continues to explain how to manage shape complexity without adversely impacting the phone's processor efficiency and optimize shape size.

 

 Vector illustration showing the number of points involved.

Using gradient fills to give an object more depth or suggest lighting directions is Chris Petty's next topic for discussion. A gradient fill is more complicated to render than flat color and you'll find workaround suggestions in this section.

Background elements are a situation where you may need to combine the use of vectors and bitmaps in Flash Lite animations and this requires careful consideration. If your animation has a vector background, each of its constituent elements must be recalculated as an object moves over it which increases processor demands and often results in slow or jerky playback. Converting the static elements to a bitmap is a solution and Chris explains the pro's and con's of doing this.

More information:

 

Back
My Rating Score
Login to rate page

Copyright © 2001 - 2009 Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. All Rights Reserved.