managing file size

Is there a rule of thumb for how many interactions, effects I should limit for each page? Or maybe total would be better...considering every book has a different number of pages.

Sorry...I keep thinking of ways to clarify. For example, I have a 100 frame animation. Is that going overboard for one page?

Hi Melissa,

150Mb sounds unreasonable to me. Unless you really take the frame animation to an extreme.

What image file format are you using? Or are you importing directly from photoshop? I think that to import from photoshop convert to .png with a compression level less than 9 (which is the maximum). You can gain 25% more compression (and hence size) if you run a batch on all images and re-compress them to .pmg level 9. Use irfanview - it's very easy with it.

Ranco

Hello there Ranco!

Thanks for the ideas. Yes, I am importing from photoshop. Can you convert to png's and still import with layers?

I have a lot of layers in my arrangements; I suspect that is the culprit. I don't want to delete them or flatten them out until I know I won't be using them for something interactive.

 suggest to re-compress everything once you are done importing, directly in the book's folder.

In addition, I'll ask Ezra to make sure they improve the compression of the png files after importing the psd files.

Anyway, try to dilute those animations. 100 frames? Are you making a movie ? :)

Ranco

Oh. Cool. I didn't know you could do that. Thanks!

Just a little movie ;) Not sure it's worth it, but I wanted to give it a try. It is a small bird hopping around the screen.

Melissa, 150MB sounds large but at the same time it depends on how many pages your app is and how many elements on each page.  I would check your folder and sort it by file size just to see what specific files are taking up the most space.  We will definitely check on the compression issue with the Photoshop import.  Ranco definitely has some good suggestions.

I've noticed that frames have a much larger size if they have large dimensions, and it sounds like the bird that hops around the screen could potentially be a frame element the size of the entire screen. Does this animation include some movement that can be turned into transition animations in order to make the frame element only around the size of the bird itself?

Hi Melissa,   this may be overkill but it is what i do,  I leave my original psd file alone so I may keep all options open to me then copy it and convert the copy...sometimes i have a few copies saved with different outcomes but my original with layers is protected and if i don't like the copy in the trash it goes and back to the orginal.  I have large MB'itis too and always looking for ways to make the apps a usable size. I had to scrap my character doing a chicken dance in an app just couldn't get it small enough; someday i'll try eliminating a few frames in between to see if it doesn't look too choppy but right now working on other frustrating things and the chicken dance will have to wait :-).