Member Avatar for ChipNygma

Hello.

I have a Flash swf image gallery loading into the main Flash movie on a website. The problem I'm having is that the quality of the images is not what it should be. I've discovered that right-clicking on the movie, selecting any resolution other than High (its default) fixes the image quality to what it should look like. I then put the setting back on High and all goes well from then on.

In attempts to remedy the situation, I've changed all images to be whole numbered sizes (no decimals) in case the browser wasn't liking that. I've also checked the obvious settings in Publish... to make sure that the JPEG was at 100 percent and that the movie was not being compressed.

I have a feeling that the image quality problem does not actually deal with the images themselves, but more the settings of the movie, but I really have no idea. I would greatly appreciate any and all ideas.

Thank you.

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Generated

Short summary and practical follow-up to the thread (adds context, alternatives and gotchas).

As discovered, the visual problem was a runtime rendering-quality issue rather than an image file problem. Checking the library and publish settings (as suggested) is reasonable, but the player’s quality mode is the thing that actually controls anti-aliasing and bitmap smoothing; toggling the right‑click Quality menu forces a re-render, which is why that “quick fix” worked. (airsdk.dev)

Practical fixes and where to put them:

  • For ActionScript 2 set the global quality before loading your gallery so the loader and its children render correctly (for example _quality = "HIGH" or "BEST" placed on the first frame of the parent movie).
  • For ActionScript 3 set stage.quality using the StageQuality constants, and for runtime-loaded images enable bitmap smoothing on the Bitmap instance after the load completes (bitmap.smoothing = true). Put the quality change in the parent SWF (before loading) so the first draw uses the intended setting. (airsdk.dev)

Notes, tradeoffs and pitfalls:

  • Changing quality is global for the SWF: setting it on a clip affects the entire movie, and a loaded child inherits the player’s quality unless it overrides it. If a loaded SWF runs in a different security sandbox it may not be allowed to change stage.quality, so control quality from the loader when possible. (open-flash.github.io)
  • Higher settings (BEST/HIGH with smoothing) improve scaled-bitmaps but cost CPU. Use BEST for static thumbnails or single images; lower to MEDIUM/LOW during heavy animation. Also watch cacheAsBitmap and pixel-snapping rules (these can force integer-pixel snapping or affect smoothing) and use the smoothing parameter on attached bitmaps where supported. (open-flash.github.io)

Tieback: this explains why ’s thank-you and ’s follow-up question about controlling quality from script are correct paths — the runtime quality flags (and bitmap smoothing) are the right levers to use.

Recommended Answers

All 6 Replies

Member Avatar for Roberdin

I don't currently have Flash MX installed, but I think, in the library pane (press F11???), if you right-click on an image and click properties or something, there are some additional options to do with image quality.

Member Avatar for ChipNygma

I've played with the library image properties (switching between the "Photo (JPEG)" and "Lossless (PNG/GIF)" settings and it hasn't seemed to help either. Also, I have three versions of every image that I have used (as well as three versions of the SWF being loaded): there is one with JPEGs, one with GIFs, and one with PNGs. So far, nothing has seemed to work.

Member Avatar for ChipNygma

I FIGURED IT OUT!

Oh joy!

What I did was place the actionscript "_highquality = 2;" on the keyframe in the main movie which holds the dummy file that the imported movie imported into. It worked great!

Thanks for the help. I hope this can help others.

Member Avatar for floris

Hello.

I have a Flash swf image gallery loading into the main Flash movie on a website. The problem I'm having is that the quality of the images is not what it should be. I've discovered that right-clicking on the movie, selecting any resolution other than High (its default) fixes the image quality to what it should look like. I then put the setting back on High and all goes well from then on.

In attempts to remedy the situation, I've changed all images to be whole numbered sizes (no decimals) in case the browser wasn't liking that. I've also checked the obvious settings in Publish... to make sure that the JPEG was at 100 percent and that the movie was not being compressed.

I have a feeling that the image quality problem does not actually deal with the images themselves, but more the settings of the movie, but I really have no idea. I would greatly appreciate any and all ideas.

Thank you.

Hi there,

You can control elements like quality using action script :)

Member Avatar for pugmation

I FIGURED IT OUT!

Oh joy!

What I did was place the actionscript "_highquality = 2;" on the keyframe in the main movie which holds the dummy file that the imported movie imported into. It worked great!

Thanks for the help. I hope this can help others.

THANKS CHIPNYGMA!
Your solution helped me too. :)

Member Avatar for cmills83

Wiat, so I can control image quality via actionscript. Let's say I imported a logo as either a png or jpg, preferably png, I can adjust the image quality yes yes? Can I apply the actions to just the image or only the keyframe? Thanks!

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