Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Killer Tips

Optimizing your final movie is a very important part of the process. After all, you want to make sure everyone can view your content without problems. If you really want to nit-pick and tune performance, try this one on for size.

Normally, creating a fade effect would require you to set the Alpha effect for one of the instances. However, you can set the Brightness effect (in the Property inspector) to accomplish the same goal. Setting the brightness to 100 will turn the instance completely white, and setting it to 100 will turn it black. If you have a white or black background for your movie, it can appear as though the symbol has disappeared. The advantage is that the brightness effect is much less processor-intensive than Alpha. If you make this change for several fades, you can really speed things up, especially if you have several complex fades. This won't be applicable every time, but try it and see if it works for what you're doing. Talk about your fine-tuning!