Scratch

(Yes, another guide. I know this is short, but not all can be long. And short can be good... har har. What a bad joke.)

Edit 2
....................................
There have been problems with projects that reach the 10-MB limit. It's a frustrating thing to always have to shrink your project, but there are some ways to help.

Note: It's impossible to magically shrink it. Just try and follow these tips.

-Contents-

1. Music
2. Graphics
3. Duplicate sprites
4. Reusing sprites
5. Tips from users
Epilogue

-Chapter One-
-Music-

It is commonly known that music will easily raise your project size. You may innocently throw in a few songs, and... disaster! Your project won't upload!

It's very frustrating. Removing only one of them could ruin the feel of the project. Or maybe it just belongs there... whatever the reason, one fact is the same: It's irritating.

Consider the following:

• If you have the same sound in different sprites, move it to only one. It just takes up a lot more space! If you have to, place broadcasts to play the music. One sound is bad enough, but two or three extra ones just ruin the whole situation.
• Try and select a short song. If you use one that's eight minutes long, you're adding on lots of silly size. Find a shorter one that has the same feel, or try a really short (fifteen to thirty seconds) music loop.
• Always check how big your sound is after you import it. Just look under the bottom-right corner of the sound name.
• If you're just adding music to a project because you can, be careful. Useless music bumps up your project's size, and can be irritating to those who want to load it or download it.
• Music isn't bad; it's just big.

Overall, music isn't a neccessity. But it adds a lot to lot projects, and can make them much better.

-Chapter Two-
-Graphics-

This isn't such a big bother, but it can happen. If you only know how to do the "multiple sprite" scrolling technique, you can easily use over 120 sprites if you're making a scroller of similar length to Archknight's Adventure or something like that. If that's the case, the best option is to learn how to scroll with two sprites (or one, but that's crazy).

You may also have sixty backgrounds in the stage, all of which represent a level in a game. What you can try is drawing it with the pen blocks, but that only works for thin lines. If you're crazy about that, use BYOB to save space. But be warned: BYOB doesn't work online.

-Chapter Three-
-Duplicate Sprites-

Lots of us know this problem; a spaceship moves into the battlefield, releasing twenty different lasers at the enemy. This has two problems:

• It's laggy.
• It takes up lots of sprites.

Well, multiple sprites can be irritating. You can't really get along without it, unless the travel distance is just a few pixels and the laser limit is three. In that case, stamp the laser in different positions.

If you've realized that you can destroy the enemy in one attack, that means if you have too many lasers. Reduce it, and you should be happier.

If the lasers make a sound on impact, that means you could have the same sound twenty times. What a waste of space! Make a broadcast that tells the Stage to make the noise for them.

Overall, you can't really get along without them. What you can do is reduce them, and maybe reduce what else needs to be done in proportion; then maybe you can cut your project size.

-Chapter Four-
-Reusing sprites-

You may have a game in which there is a switch and lever in each level. Rather than making a sprite for each, you can reuse them.

To do that, simply allow it to keep track of the current level. They can take their places appropriately.

Or maybe you're making a game in which you touch a triangle in each level. Rather than creating a sprite for each, you can have it go here and there.

This is a rather small idea, but it boils down to the fact that you can reuse sprites as long as it doesn't need to be in two places at once (unless you stamp and have lots of sensing).

-Chapter Five-
-Tips from users-

Paddle2See wrote:

Music:  You can use Audacity to shorten a song up...maybe just hang onto the first minute or so of it.  Or, you can use the Play Note blocks to make your own music and take up practically no space at all.  Or, you can use a project like Jens A Little Music projector Rhythm and Blues that creates it's own music on the fly.

Images:  Be careful of imported color images...they can chew up a lot of space if the color depth is great.  Try using an image editor, like Paint.Net to reduce the color depth to something lower and see if you can live with the image quality.  You can also try resampling the image to a lower resolution.

-Epilogue-

Unfortunately, there is a limit to all projects on Scratch. Some of them are hard to break; imagine an enormous RPG with many 480-360 pixel costumes.
A project has to stop somewhere, and finding the point is tricky. If you're defiant, you can try pushing it as much as possible - or avoiding the Share button.

But overall, just try to make your project great and see how it goes.

Last edited by Chrischb (2010-12-20 23:22:41)