Loading and Preloading Astro .swf´s into Flash MX / 2004
If you like to implement .swf´s generated with ASTRO into your movies in Flash MX / 2004 so you can use them in your .fla files, we have a easy template available.
Download Astro_loader.zip which contains a .fla file and 5 external .swf´s created with ASTRO.
The .fla file will preload the external .swf files and during the timeline will trigger them to play with a single actionscript line. The whole concept is not difficult to understand. What you basically need to do is;
Where X is the number value of the effect
- In the first frame the names of the .swf files are defined.
- For any external .swf a "externalX" layer is created and containing an instance of MovieClip [external] with instance name accordingly (important!) containing numeric values (external1, external2, etc). They will load the .swf numericallydefined in frame one. ,
- Add a externalX.gotoAndPlay("animate"); in a keyframe on the timeline to start the effect X
Tip: You can add keyframes to the "externalX" layers so you can even scale up or down, alpha fade in or out, rotate the complete effect by simply adding motiontween to the keyframes.... make sure to set "sync" to tweens so effects are not accidently reset.
Some other tips are included in the .fla itself.
The preloader contains a percentual loading for the content of the .fla itself based upon total filesize in kb's and loaded kb's. Since percentual calculation of internal progress is different from the progress of external swf´s the progress of the external .swf's is shown as current loading external swf versus total external swf's.