Re: masks in ming

Kelvin Luck wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I'm using MING to make a tool where you can cut your face out of a photo for
> use in an animation and it all seemed to be going fine.
> Basically I am going uploaded JPEG > GD Image Object.
> Then use the GD drawing functions to draw some transparent areas into this
> image (based on data gathered from a little flash app).
> Then output this image to a PNG which is converted into a DBL which is
> turned into an SWF using MING.
> All works fine. But.... I just looked at the filesizes and realised that the
> final SWF is loads (like 8x) bigger than the original JPEG. I guess this is
> because PNG files are less good at compressing photographic type image
> data...
> So I was thinking maybe I would be better making the PNG without the
> photographic data and using it to mask the loaded JPEG. Is this possible
> using MING? Maybe it is best to do the masking at runtime but I think that
> limits me to the flash 6 player (since I would be loading the image to be
> masked and the mask in from actionscript).
> Any suggestions,
> Thanks,
> Kelvin.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> ming-fun mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://www.opaque.net/mailman/listinfo/ming-fun
May I suggest maybe you could convert your image to vectors(polygons
with color fills).  The swf file may be bigger but perhaps it would take
up less memory in the flash player.  It's a lot of work to keep the
fidelity of the colors though.  If you compromise the loss of colors you
could make the .swf size smaller and it will definitely take up less
memory in the flash player.  In FLASH and Illustrator, there is a
capability to convert an image into vectors somewhat to what I am
talking about.

There are libraries out there that do convert images to vectors but I
don't remember their names.  Actually someone in the group demontrated
something similar with postscript fonts and taking the outlines and
converting them to flash objects and then controlling/changing the
outline chapes.  This may be of use to you.

Cheers