Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
You need to understand and work with the limitations of Flash. Xara can produce many "live" effects that are not supported by Flash. Most transparencies and transparency shapes are not supported. Stroke shapes are not supported, etc. This is not Xara's fault or Flash's fault. They are two very different applications that can communicate for the most part on a very basic level.
People who have learned to work within the constraints of both programs have produced some really excellent results. Egg and Squeaky are just two members of the community who have produced excellent work with Xara's SWF file format.
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
Thanks Gary. I find export to Flash not to be a one button click process. For me it goes something like this:
Split my illustration into the layers I want in Flash in Xara.
House keeping on each layer. -Converting profiled line to shape and replacing any fill shapes that these lines had (that I forgot about :-)), Converting to editable shapes (to be on the safe side).
I often either create a copy of my work doc for this or duplicate the current page.
One simple tip I have is to 'select all' and then select the 'constant' (ordinary) line profile. If you draw shapes without lines after using a shaped line profile Xara applies that profile to the shape even though there seems to be no line which can cause problems with swf export.
Rarely I also get Flash being huffy with gradients and it takes a couple of attempts with the same file to get it to load correctly. If this doesn't work one old trick I used for this was to make sure the gradient start and end positions are on the edge of your shape. I am the worlds worst for having my gradients end points way outside the document even once I start tweaking things.
Hope this helps
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Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
I understand the limitations of both Flash and Xara. That's not the issue. I'm not trying to do anything fancy. I've attached a very very simple Xara file with three circles: one solid yellow, one with a red gradient, and a blue one with 50% flat transparency. All three have an 8pt black constant outline. Export to SWF. Import into Flash. With my prior setup (Xara Xtreme and Flash 8) this worked perfectly. What's happening today (with XPGD6 and Flash CS4) is that only the red circle comes in as a plain shape with the proper color and outline. The other two are converted to instances of the same pure-white library symbol (a graphic), with advanced color effects applied, and the outlines just go away. The advanced color effect reproduces the proper colors at runtime it's no good for animating. Converting to editable shapes doesn't help. Does anybody know why this is happening? Is it Xara? Is it Flash? Is it me? Please help. You guys seem to not have this problem. Has anybody else ever seen this happen? Thanks, everyone.
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
You are not going mad.
There is something very wrong there. I even had problems when I recreated the 3 circles from scratch.
The only way I could get them into Flash properly was to do them individually and they worked fine. As 3 objects on the page or a group I got the errors you experience. Even converted to editable shapes I got the errors. (as did using squares)
If - however - I drew some freehand shapes with the same fill attributes they exported to flash perfectly....well, apart from being no use at all as circles (or squares). I guess I haven't run into this because nearly all my content for Flash is hand drawn. It looks like a world of pain when I do need that functionality.
I'd say this was a bug and that you should report this to tech support. I'll cheer from the side lines and join in if I can. :-(
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Squeaky
You are not going mad.
Thanks for that, Squeaky! I needed to hear it! :)
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
I've been there mate. Group testing always helps :-)
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
I opened ticket number BVK-794761 with Xara on 8/25. No response yet.
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
I'm suspecting the 'fault' is actually pretty useful to the way Xara does animation with quick shapes. Shame it is so disastrous for the basic swf export.
Let's hope it is something they can fix with a patch. I suppose the only other work around is to use older versions of xtreme as i think it is impossible to draw circles point by point.
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
Yes well. I've just run into this again. I exported some type with a radial fill to Flash. I needed to break it apart in order to animate the transparency. When I did the letters became white. A bit of a problem that!
I have reported it to Support :-(
Re: Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format
Customer service did some tests, they sent a file to me, I made some revisions, they did some more tests, and they've formally filed a bug report. Hopefully a future update will give us a solution. Perhaps the option to "export for import" since I'm fairly sure this bug is the result of a super-optimization that they surely won't want to undo.