As you can see, creating an animated optimized banner is not only about animating skills, but mostly about custom tricks for optimizing without damaging the original pieces.

Throughout the whole process we saw that one of the most important things when creating an animated banner is not only that you are skilled as a animator / programmer, but also that you or someone in your team is skilled when reducing file sizes to fit the specs that the publishers will give you before making the pieces . These are some tips that may be useful for you in the future, to reduce file sizes without damaging the banners too much:

1. Plan the banner and its idea, being aware of the size you have available , maybe there will be some rich media banners in which you’ll do all you wanted to.
2. Use Size report from Flash Publish settings as one of your main tools, checking which frame is loading the most of the file size and if something needs to be redistributed .
3. It’s easier to do a rough full version and then optimize it than creating everything optimized from the very beginning . The same for image sequences. Make them full and then remove frames as needed.
4. Regarding text, if it is not very large you can write it in Flash and then break it into shapes, but if there’s a lot of text you should create it in JPEG or GIF format.
5. If the banner has audio features , try export them as mono on a higher quality, as long as the sound isn’t completely messed up.
6. Try avoid PNG or formats including transparency when using bitmaps (for either texts or other images). You can use formats using a white or black background and then play with the blending mode available in Flash to make it disappear.
7. As the solution , and also if everything else failed or wasn’t enough, try to remove some time from the timelines of your Flash movies.

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