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bobr98541489
bobr98541489
New Participant
January 3, 2018
Question

Animate 2018 animation playback is slow

  • January 3, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 2560 views

Hi all.

I've noticed an issue where the frame rate is slowing down upon playback (hitting "return" key) within Animate for the last couple updates/versions.  From what I can tell, it has to do with the variable strokes.  The more variable strokes that you use, the more the playback will slow down.  However, just a couple symbols with variable strokes yields an immediate frame choke.  A hand, a head, an eye, that use variable stokes to produce thick an thin lines will slow down playback.  I saw a thread about this last year, but I don't think the problem or solutions were quite clear.

Publishing or exporting the content WILL yield a correct frame rate, but this may not be suitable in all situations.  The goal for any animator is to see playback for timing purposes with as little compromise as possible.

I've worked on previous projects where the introduction of variable strokes was new and great and I designed characters with them, but when it came to animation, my solution was to break down the strokes into flat vector shapes in order for play back to be immediate for the animators.  This creates different issues (less editable, more raw vertices).  In some regards, it may make more sense to draw using the brush tool (with tablet/cintiq) instead of trying to use the variable strokes (which are quite cool design-wise).

I assume the goal has always been to encourage variable strokes and to have them function without slowing down animation.  With the last couple versions of Animate I've been hoping this would be resolved, but nothing that I can definitively see yet.

Is this something that is known?  Can the strokes be optimized so that they do NOT affect animation in a future release?  Anything in the works?

I've been using Animate/Flash since Marcomedia and I'd be happy to elaborate.

Thanks!

-bob.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
January 6, 2018

If you find an older version that had the Deco tool, you would probably see similar slowdowns. The Paint Brush Tool, and the variable width lines, do add a lot of vectors very quickly. That may be why it moves through the timeline slower.

You could try putting a sound layer in, with the sound sync set to Stream (would need to be an ActionScript 3 FLA), then frames are skipped to make the animation keep up, and you can slowly scrub the timeline to get your animation to be in time with the sound.

One good thing, if you're animating to end up as video the exported frame rate will be perfect. If you're doing SWF or Canvas the playback doesn't have to make the whole Animate UI update all the time, but it may not be as perfect as video would be.

I will ask around about how to change the post away from Assumed Answered.

bobr98541489
bobr98541489Author
New Participant
January 8, 2018

Thanks for your reply Colin.  Your suggestions are noted!

My projects tend to be for video output of frame sequences for a game engine so you're right in that the playback is perfect in those situations - just not so perfect when I'm working in Animate.

Yeah, it could be assumed that the variable width strokes are vector hogs and causing the slow down.  However, when you flatten the strokes, creating many raw vertices, the playback runs fine.

So I have a character made up of many nested symbols for his face, each part (eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) using variable strokes.  If I try a simple tween on the whole head containing the pieces, the frame rate drops from 24 to 15 or so.  BUT, if I go inside and convert the variable strokes to fills, everything plays fine.  In the conversion/flattening process, the strokes definitely create a lot more vertices than you might expect (and it'd difficult to edit at this stage) but again, it plays fine.

So I'm of the thinking that the math/calculation needed to maintain the variable strokes, is what's slowing it all down.  Not necessarily the extra points.

In all my updating of Animate and all Adobe software I use, I swear there was a version/update that relieved this slow down.  I remember opening an old file with variable strokes intact, hitting return, and seeing the playback stay locked at 24.  So I assumed it was fixed for good.  But I'm noticing it again now.  I could be mis remembering things, but the issue stands with the latest version.

I'd say it's something I should just live with because it's a trade off:  cool variable strokes OR a solid frame rate.  But I think that's an inherent problem with an animation tool.  You should be able to have editable strokes AND your animation playback.  The brush tool has always worked fine in this regard.  Things like the deco tool and the textured brush tool are acceptable in terms of slow down.  These are heavy computations and typically used in special situations.  Just like scenes with a lot of alpha can choke the playback.  But simple stroke width modifications doesn't seem like it should handicap your playback.

Hope I'm still making sense

Thanks again for your response and thanks for sharing that trick to "unmark" a thread.  I'll keep it in mind even though I'm not a mod!

bobr98541489
bobr98541489Author
New Participant
January 5, 2018

oops - I accidentally clicked "make this assumed answered" and can't seem to undo it.  Maybe there's a forum for addressing questions about posting in forums...

Still wondering if the above slowdown issue has been noticed by others.  Maybe Adobe is already aware?

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
January 6, 2018

Found a work around to the assumed answered part. I marked my answer as Correct, then unmarked it as Correct. Not sure if you could have done that yourself, but I'm a moderator, so I was able to.

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