Date: Wed Jul 29 08:34:12 MST 1998 From: Ken Day <kday@macromedia.com> Subject: Loading of External Casts in Shockwave
>How does the loading of external casts work in Shockwave 6.01. Does the >first movie to use any of the graphics in an linked external cast load all >the graphics or just the ones it needs?There are 2 issues: When do the linked casts get downloaded from the server do shockwave's cache and when do the graphics get loaded into memory.
Downloading:
If you are D6-streaming a movie, the movie starts to stream down. As soon
as Shockwave discovers there are linked casts, it starts to stream them
down in parallel with the movie. Animation can begin only when the
structural information at the beginning of the movie and all linked casts
have been downloaded, but we don't wait for the graphics & other media
(unless your movie properties or lingo commands force waiting).
If you aren't streaming the movie, I believe animation starts only when the movie and all linked casts have been fully downloaded.
What's the "structural information"? Essentially everything except the media itself. The description of the cast members (type, size, name, linkage info, but not the graphic itself), compiled lingo code, list of linked casts, the score. Everything except the bits which make up the graphics, sounds, etc.
Loading graphics into memory:
Obviously, not before the part of the file they reside in has been
downloaded. Other than that, they are loaded into memory on demand, just
as in a projector or in authoring.