After effects file to large!

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1

Hello,

I downloaded an after effects template (earth HD) and am having problems with the file size being to large.

I am going to be converting the finished product to a swf file to upload to my website so I would like the finished product to be as small as possible.
Can anyone tell me how I can go about exporting the video to achieve the smallest file size possible while still maintaining some quality.

Thanks,
Steve

2

you can reduce the quality to the lowest but enough for you.
you can export it as jpeg sequence then reduce the quality of each frame manualy then import back, make animation of that sequence in flash and export it as swf. you see there is a big diference between flash made swf and AE made swf. give me more details on what you are making and i may posibly help.

3

Hey cyzer, thanks for your reply,

I am using the earth HD file (swf) as a looping background for my website that is going to autoplay when a user comes to my website.

So I want it to be of decent quality but load as fast as possible.

This is my first time using AE so I do not know a whole lot.

What is the difference between rendering and exporting?

Thanks,

Steve

4

export/render its same, sory for mistaking You :slight_smile: but there is difference if you export it from AE or Flash. AE is not good enough in making swf files, so what i would do is:
export your HD earth loop as jpeg sequence. Then reduce the wuality of all those jpeg files with photoshop and import to flash as animation. If you don’t know shortcuts and if you are not well aknowledged with adobe applications it may take decent amount of time for you, but that is the way I would do it.

  1. Render your earth as jpeg sequence to a folder
  2. import all those pictures to photoshop
  3. Record your action of reducing file size in photoshop (http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/photoshop-actions/)
  4. now just import all those changed jpeg files to Flash and make animation
    (sequence pic 1 goes to frame one, sequence pic 2 goes to frame two and so on…)
    make Flash frames per second 30
    and export it by pressing File>Publish settings> tick flash… then go to flash tab change jpeg quality settings to what you like. Now OK. Again go to File>publish.
    Now you have nice swf file for web.
    Basicly what i want to say AE swf is not equal to Flash swf.
5

I suspect file size and therefore download time will be too big if you take this approach. How about trying a looping (and short) flv (at say 12 or 15fps)? This should be quicker to experiment with as you can render to this format at various kbps quite easily.

If download time is still too long try and output at 50% actual size and then enlarge your flv player. The result will be half resolution but it may still look perfectly acceptable. After all, I guess you don’t want your background to dominate your content…

6

Thank you for your replies.

I think i’m gonna go with your method Generator as I do not have much AE experience and it seems much easier. Thanks.

I do have one question.

How do I make my video footage loop?

Thanks,

Steve

7
thenetwork said

Thank you for your replies.

I think i’m gonna go with your method Generator as I do not have much AE experience and it seems much easier. Thanks.

I do have one question.

How do I make my video footage loop?

Thanks,

Steve

You should use actionscript inside your swf (flv player). I can’t recall exactly what it is but the logic is this: MyflvPlayer>onComplete>Play. Obviously make sure the clip you render to flv from AE is loopable - the first and last frames should not be the same. Make sense?