Illustrator logo makes SWF slow

Hi guys,

I’m running into a bit of an issue that I don’t know how to resolve.

A client has sent me a logo as an illustrator file, for me to import into Flash and add to the project. The thing is.. it seems to consist of quite a few layers and stuff, making the entire SWF run slow as butter when I try to rotate/animate the logo.

Does anyone know what I could do to make it run faster? There is no need preserve layers. It’s an illustrator file created in CS4 or CS5 , so I cannot import it to Flash directly. I’m opening in Illustrator CS3 (which tells me it’s a file created with a higher version, but it opens anyway), and when I copypaste to Flash it adds over 200 symbols to the library.

Is there anything I can do to flatten the illustration to, say.. one symbol? When I try to use ‘Break Apart’ the logo gets messed up, as there are semi-transparant objects etc. I was hoping to find a feature similar to Photoshop’s Flatten, but I havn’t had any luck.

I’d rather not convert to a bitmap, as rotating bitmaps usually results in much more quality loss than rotating vectors.

Short version: I have little experience with Illustrator. How to I flatten a bunch of layers into one vector shape?

I’m an idiot. I ment to say ‘Groups and Paths’ wherever I said ‘Layers’. It’s all on 1 layer in Illustrator already

However, when I googled, I (naively) googled “Illustrator flatten” but never added “layers” or “groups”. Your search got me a result I’m gonna try out – I’ll report back in a bit! Thanks!

EDIT : I just figured that what I’m really trying to do it combine paths to form a single path. I guess I’m going to go ahead and save myself some fuss and just create a highres bitmap.

Joost, in my experience the best result can be achieved with a good bitmap masked with a vector shape. The edges become sharp and clean that way, even if you enable smoothing on the bitmap.

flashedge said
Joost, in my experience the best result can be achieved with a good bitmap masked with a vector shape. The edges become sharp and clean that way, even if you enable smoothing on the bitmap.

+1 , nice trick ; thanks flashedge.

flashedge said
Joost, in my experience the best result can be achieved with a good bitmap masked with a vector shape. The edges become sharp and clean that way, even if you enable smoothing on the bitmap.

That’s just brilliant. Amazing. I’m shocked by the simplicity yet awesomeness of that idea!: Thanks!