Blowing in the Wind

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, Todd Higgins  wrote:

> I was able to get it play smoothly in the 2.6 Revolution Dreamcard
> Player.  It is a beautiful effect, but it was sucking up 25% of my
> G4's processor (867 PB).  Is that typical?

This is true for almost any animation/messages that run in intervals less
than 1 second.  The more messages you have, and the more frequently you send
them, the more processor time is consumed.

What is interesting is that the related construct "wait until <condition>
with messages" appears to consume little or no additional processor time,
but accomplishes the same result.  I've asked about this on the list before
but never saw any official response from the rev folks.  Wait with messages
*appears* to be a less processor intensive technique, but the drawback is
you cannot edit the script while the wait is executing.


> Does anyone know how that would compare to a similar animation in Flash?

In a standard window there would be no overhead at all -- it would simply be
animation.  Last I looked (which was some time ago),  I didn't see any way
to *dynamically change* the window mask of a movie.  I know you can apply a
custom window shape to a standalone application, but I'm not familiar with
any way to dynamically change the mask while the movie is running (though
there may be a way).

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
-----
E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com