Tween speed MXML vs Sprite

[moxol]

I was wondering if anyone has experience in using GSAP in MXML and Sprite so that comparison can be made in performance.

 

I am working at the moment with MXML and I didn't have chance to try GSAP only in Sprite, and I can say that I am not very pleased with speed of executing tweens. I know that there are many factors that can slow down executing tweens, particularly in Flash runtime, but as it stands now, I think that using GSAP in MXML is limited to simpler work, to what extent, I don't know yet.

[GreenSock]

I'm actually quite surprised by your post - I'm used to hearing the opposite. GSAP is well known for outperforming most (if not all) other animation solutions out there by a wide margin, so I'm very curious to see an example where it's slower than some other alternative - could you post an example? I have heard from many developers who said that once they started using GSAP in their Flex apps they noticed a large performance improvement. Maybe you have a unique scenario that's exposing a weakness which I'd definitely want to shore up if at all possible. So a sample that shows the same thing working well with a different solution and poorly with GSAP would be VERY helpful in diagnosing the issue.

[moxol]

I'm actually quite surprised by your post - I'm used to hearing the opposite. GSAP is well known for outperforming most (if not all) other animation solutions out there by a wide margin, so I'm very curious to see an example where it's slower than some other alternative - could you post an example? I have heard from many developers who said that once they started using GSAP in their Flex apps they noticed a large performance improvement. Maybe you have a unique scenario that's exposing a weakness which I'd definitely want to shore up if at all possible. So a sample that shows the same thing working well with a different solution and poorly with GSAP would be VERY helpful in diagnosing the issue.

 

I didn't say it's bad, but for some serious interactive app, it's not.

I was using relatively small number of FXG's in relatively complex MXML, and choppy animation is noticable, slower response to starting animation when mouse clicked...

That slower performance has to do with event dispatching mostly, and redrawing of FXG's, even though I used as much performance tweeking I could.

It's not due to GSAP, which probably is the best solution, but rather Flash not up to task.

[GreenSock]

Ah yes, typically performance issues stem from demanding a lot from the Flash Player's graphics rendering engine, NOT the animation platform's ActionScript execution. For example, if you're animating a bunch of fxg stuff around, GSAP may account for 0.01% of the demand on the CPU/GPU versus 99.99% of the load comes from the Flash Player having to render all the vectors, images, etc. on each frame. On top of that, the Flex framework itself is extremely bulky and often inefficient.

 

If you're just moving things around (not scaling or rotating), especially if it's vectors, it might be worthwhile looking into BlitMask or FlexBlitMask. http://www.greensock.com/blitmask/