Help:Guide to Synchronization
Synchronization, or sync is the matching of images with audio to improve the impact of both. It is a vital part of many YTMND, but what seems like a simple task can actually be quite difficult. The purpose of this guide is to not only instruct on the basic idea of sync, but to also share the tips and tricks that can only come with experience.
Contents
The Basics
Any sync'ed YTMND will require the use of a gif, an mp3 and the Flash Preloader.
- The Gif
- This guide won't be covering gif creation (will link it when someone makes the page for it), but the MAXIMUM file size that you want your animated gif to be is 3mb.
Activation and usage
At this time, the preloader will only run on YTMNDs where the creator has enabled "Synchronize" in the YTMND creator. When a user accesses a synced YTMND, a flash animation will appear, showing the YTMND logo. The preloader will first load the MP3 with a progress bar showing the percentage of how much the file has loaded. Next it will blink a loading message for the image. Once both files are loaded, the background image will appear, and the preloader will loop the MP3.
FAQ
- What is the Flash Preloader?
- It's a system of modules, using Flash and Javascript, that preloads your site's audio and image, and starts them at the same time. It also does some polling to keep things in check.
- How do I use it?
- When you create a site, click the 'Yes' radio button under 'Syncronize'. You can use the Delay to tweak your audio. If the image is trailing your intended audio, or if it losing synch after a couple loops, try increasing this value. (It's in milliseconds, so a value of 100 = 1/10th of a second.). Also, your sound clip must currently be .mp3.
- It still doesn't sync for me.
- It's probably going to happen for some people. It still hooks into the traditional method of displaying images, so you'll be susceptable to problems from a bloated OS, low memory, etc, etc.
- Flash? But this is YTMND. Flash is for Newgrounds!
- Flash is currently used as an audio buffering and timer/polling utility, with proxying into Javascript. The image is still displayed the "traditional" way, using a .gif or .jpg as a background image. Eventually we're hoping to have .wav support, which will dramatically decrease the filesize and have seamless looping. Also, another benefit of this is better browser compability (whereas the other way uses specific methods for IE and Mozilla/Firefox.)
- Browser compatibility? But it's not working Opera/Safari/KewlBrowser.
- Some people are having problems. I *pretend* to be looking into it.
- Why is it crashing in IE?
- Not sure, because this was fixed. If you're still having a problem, make a post about it.
- What was that about .wav support again?
- The support is actually ready to go, but the problem is a 64-bit compatible conversion utility for the .wav files. If/once that gets going, the download time for .wav loops will be dramatically reduced (about 1/5 the original size), will sound just as good, and will loop seamlessly.
- Isn't this preloader going to create a lot of crappy sites?
- No, the user will.
- It just isn't working for me.
- If it doesn't work and there's nothing you can do about it, you can disable it by unchecking "Use flash preloader when available" on your options page.
- It sucks!
- ;_;
