FCC crashes when opening old project (with SWF object movie)

[ondrat]

Hi Trausti,
a while ago Woody and myself discussed problem with Object movies and FFC. It looks like Adobe made some changes in the Flash Player which negatively affected displaying SWF object movies in FFC/FPP. Is there actually something we could do on our side (FFC/FPP) to resolve this problem? It is a bit scary to suddenly realize some of your old projects not working because of the update of Flash player. I tend to believe that updates should be about adding/upgrading new features instead of removing them and experience like this brings a lot of worry to my head Anyway I would like to dig a little more into this problem but haven't find the time yet.

I am having another issue related to this problem and I pray to God you would be able to help me. I am not able to open any project which contain Object movie file. When I open the project FFC crashes - FFC disappear from taskbar and main window with controls also disappears. I can still see window with pano but I can't interact. I need to kill FFC in the processes (W7 64bit). I've tried to use some old and very old version of FFC and also downgraded Flash Player to version 10 and 9 but FFC crashes no matter what version it is.

I am due to make some updates for one of the project so I need to find the solution asap.
Many thanks for any advise or help
I am sending you FFC file in PM
Ondrej

[thwohojr]

back to the top.

Trausti,
I was hoping that you had seen this and would respond with any information or suggestions.
Thanks,

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Hi Woody.

Yes, the issue in that case seems to be some change in Flash Player itself, which conflicted with the object movie in question. The object movie was made with an older version of Object2VR. Object movies made with more recent versions of Object2VR seem to be problem free.

What we can do on our end to safeguard against this: Nothing.... not until we publish our own object movie program solution... and then we would have control of what goes on internally. What you users can do, is to make sure to use object photos from the most recent version of Object2VR.

Sorry for not being able to help more in that area. I had this thread open for response some time back, but lost track of it after the HDD crash I had (along with several other threads... still not up and running on everything).

[ondrat]

Thanks Woody for bringing this topic back.

Trausti thanks for the answer. I just wanna clarify that using latest version of Object2VR only solves the problem with FFC crashes. Problem with displaying object movies persist no matter of O2VR version and currently there is no way of using object movies in FPP. Although we can work with them in FFC gui there are not visible when project is flashificated or published with projector. There is no doubt this was caused by Adobe Flash Player update (I have a feeling it was version 11 release) but we could not hope in solution from Adobe side. It looks like GardenGnomeSoftware found the solution as current object movies are visible in web browsers (they weren't after the same Adobe update). That gives me hope there should be solution on FPP side too... What do you think?

Many thanks
Regards
Ondrej

[thwohojr]

Trausti,
Ondrej is correct. I've attached a test ffc file which contains one 360, one thumbnail and one ObjectVR swf. It works fine in the FFC interface, but when published the ObjVR swf is not visible.
This may be a similar to the issue of the Social Media plugin, where the designer of that plugin informed me that the pano.swf code would need to be altered to allow "child" swfs. But hey I'm not a coder so he may as well have given me the secret recipe for Coca-Cola.

Apparently Ondrej and I are in the minority here as far as seeing the usefullness, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Downloaded, and will hopefully have some positive results at the end of the day. If not positive, then at least I hope to have an explanation.

Regarding Mouse Children (allow child): It is possible to set this in "Hotspots2" where you can tick the "Mouse Children" tickbox to enable/disable it. It is intended for use with swf's as you have been told.

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Proggy did tests, and there was at first a sandbox violation. The swf wanted to dynamically make some changes to hotspots, which is not supported. He made changes in hotspots.swf to allow that, then there came another error, something about text object not being a function. He get's nowhere further with this, since there is no indication of what is taking place internally in the object movie file, causing this error.

Sorry that it isn't getting further than this

Trausti

[ondrat]

Hi Trausti, thanks to you and proggy to take a time to look at it. Seeing now Woody's test ffc file I can understand there could have been issues perhaps because of complexity of the swf file. There is no doubt Woody's 360 bus is great example of the use of object movies but it doesn't have to be the best example to do testing with if you know what I mean For that reason I would like to kindly ask you for one more testing before we definitelly leave the idea of swf objects in virtual tours and lose imho one of the most promising interactive feature.

I made as simple example as I could with plain object movie and I wonder perhaps it might be better to bring swf to life.
Many thanks
Ondrej

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

I will have Proggy to do a test on this one as well and hopefully there will be something positive coming out of it. If not, then I will have him to take up the object photo project I got him started on a couple of years ago... making something simple should not take long. My approach is for a completely different way to make object movies than what has been done traditionally... faster and better... but different, and that project will need more than just a few hours to be put together. But a traditional simple thing shouldn't be a major obstacle.

[ondrat]

Great Trausti, thanks a million. I look forward to hearing about proggy's findings. Regarding to the 'object photo project' you have my full support indeed and I would love to hear more about your different approach. Simple application to start with would be great, let me know when its available for pre-orders

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

The same problems are showing in the simpler file.

Proggy did put together the basis for a simple object player.

He could make a very simple thing without much effort... but sometimes too simple is too ... well... simple... but then again, it might be enough for simple things to work perfectly.
In that connection I would like to ask for input from you guy's who use object movies, or want to use those in projects.
What would you like to have as basics?
Would you like a single file output, or a folder structure? Proggy says that having the output with multiple files, is better for streaming and handling. If you for instance have a 10mb object movie, it would have to be fully downloaded before it could start, if it is a single file, while it can be used immediately (progressive streaming) when it is not a single file.

Simple could include:

zoom
left/right manual rotation
left/right autorotation
Drop all your object movie images into one place, and for as long as they are numbered correctly (from low to high/high to low) the program will take care of the rest.

If you have other ideas for what "simple" should mean, we would be happy to hear of it.

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Picked out from Vizzy (flash trace):

Code: Select all

Warning: An ActionScript 1.0/2.0 SWF file has loaded an ActionScript 3.0 SWF; code in the ActionScript 3.0 SWF will not run.

This means that the Object2VR has been created with AS1 and AS2... which is absolutely not good news for AS3. Even though it's all Action Script, the differences are big, and in this case, not solvable on our end.

[ondrat]

Hi Trausti, thanks again for finding what cause this problem and offering solution on your side by creating your own 'o2vr'...

I am actually split in half regarding to one file vs folder with files. I can see the point with handling files, etc. but I can also imagine it could be counter-productive. I mean when streaming user might not know if movie is still loading or if it has been loaded. In case of slow connection there is a risk that viewer could see just begining of the movie and could think that was it. If you know what I mean... On the other hand I could imagine situations where streaming is much better option. Personally I don't plan to use massive files just yet so at this stage I am leaning towards one file. But I am aware I might regret it in the near future. ...of course to have an option to choose either output would be the best solution for us (but not necessary for proggy, heh?)

Zoom, auto/manual rotation would be good for a start. I guess there would be still option of grabbing movie by mouse and spin it around, correct? Simple dropping numbered files is good enough and I don't think even in the future versions there would be need to changing files at all. Object2VR has a lot of options of setting the output size, quality, etc. but personally I prefer to do this in PS so I have 100% control over the files.

I have never used advanced features like hotspots and text fields. Woody is a master of using them but I reckon those are not in category "basics". Of course it would be great to have such a features in future versions. Same as possibility to add more than one row of photos so we could pan also up/down, not just left/right.

What I care more about is final output and options of embedding it into the FPP. I have NO idea how difficult would it be but I would rate highly if:
- there will be option of distort the movie
- there will be an option of using 'Alpha channel'. I mean to get rid of the background or unwanted parts of the picture. I assume its not as easy as using png files with alpha channel. But maybe it would be "easy" to have blend layer as we have for movies where black background is eliminated. If this is possible I think rather that black it would be great to use some strange colour which is not seen in nature very often, something like #ff00f0

That's what I could think of now. I am curious to see contribution from other users which might inspire me to have more requirements
Having said that simple thing as you described it would be more than what we could have wished for!
Thanks
Ondrej

btw If you plan further development of object player I dare say it should be paid add-on.

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Yes, with streaming people on slow connections, and with big files, might think that the loading was over and done... but a loadmeter could be a solution to that potential problem.
2 types of output... that is also what I have been thinking of, but the final word on that has to come from Proggy... after all it is he who has to put the thing together.

Of course one will have the mouse grab/rotate functionality... that is pretty much a basic feature (I have seen object movies that simply turn on their own, with no user interaction possible, and that is absolutely not the way I would like things to be as a standard... maybe as an optional feature for publishing, but not as the normal/only output.

Hotspots in future ... since that will bring a lot more functionality with it, and that again requires a lot more work to be put into the development.... no time for that right now. Multi row will also have to wait for the future... but is absolutely on the agenda (and has been for the past 2+years).

Distorting the movie, should not be a problem, since Proggy made that possible to do when he created the Twitter plugin.
Transparent background... that is something of importance, and your suggestions might become useful.

You are all too willing to hand out your money