Make online flash file desktop

[Silasj]

Now I know it's possible to make a flash file, .swf, your desktop.
And I know you can capture flash files online to your computer, however, I can't seem to make it work with this flash file

Can anyone help me?

[Claies]

Well, you can first save the file to your computer. You can then make a web page with that flash file embedded on it, and then put that web page on your Active Desktop.

Good luck!

[Silasj]

Originally Posted by Claies

Well, you can first save the file to your computer. You can then make a web page with that flash file embedded on it, and then put that web page on your Active Desktop.

Good luck!

I already tried that, but whenever I copy the .swf file from the "temporary internet files" folder and pastes it anywhere else, Haruhi disappears and it's just a grey background. It works fine with a lot of other flash files, I can't seem to make it work with this particular flash file.

[Claies]

...I should have known this is something tougher than just Actionscript grabbing another file elsewhere. This is Actionscript grabbing multiple files.

So I went through the hex dump for the file with Sothink SWF decompiler, and it looks like it acquires every single graphic down to Haruhi's eyelashes separately from the server (I see "lip_eyelash.png" somewhere in the dump), and dynamically calculates the image skewing as your mouse moves with crazy amounts of script. A very clever way to stop you from saving this, I must say.

It's technically possible to have this run locally on the computer, but we're going to have to find every single graphic from the site's directories and save them in the correct paths on your computer relative to the flash file itself. This isn't the easiest way to do anything, but I think that's all we've got. I don't even know how many graphics there are.

[Silasj]

Originally Posted by Claies

...I should have known this is something tougher than just Actionscript grabbing another file elsewhere. This is Actionscript grabbing multiple files.

So I went through the hex dump for the file with Sothink SWF decompiler, and it looks like it acquires every single graphic down to Haruhi's eyelashes separately from the server (I see "lip_eyelash.png" somewhere in the dump), and dynamically calculates the image skewing as your mouse moves with crazy amounts of script. A very clever way to stop you from saving this, I must say.

It's technically possible to have this run locally on the computer, but we're going to have to find every single graphic from the site's directories and save them in the correct paths on your computer relative to the flash file itself. This isn't the easiest way to do anything, but I think that's all we've got. I don't even know how many graphics there are.

*gives it some thought*

I figured it was something like that, however I wasn't sure since I'm not that good at .swf grabbing
I was wondering if it would be possible, to have the .swf template, with all the graphic files it need, as links, so it would fetch them all from the website without having to download. But I suppose that would equal to try and download all the files.

Perhaps if they have an open ftp server, the files would be easy to locate.

Googling "Haruhi512.swf" comes up with some japanese sites mentioning the .swf file, but I have no idea what they are saying, and if they are just mentioning the file as something cool.

Spoiler for Websites:

http://www.atmark.gr.jp/~s2000/cgi-b...=msgview&list=
http://b.hatena.ne.jp/yheld/tagmobile?tag=flash

[Richard 23]

Actually it's easier than you think. Those png files are actually stored in another swf file. Take a closer look at the hex dump. You'll find: "original/FaceData.swf" in there.

To get the haruhi flash to work correctly locally you only need two files: haruhi512.swf (41k) and FaceData.swf (390k).

Just be sure that you save FaceData.swf in a subdirectory named "original" in the same directory as haruhi512.swf. You should then be able to open the haruhi512.swf file in your browser.

Good luck!

If you open FaceData.swf in Sothink SWF Decompiler you will find the data that appeared to missing from the main swf file.

Image (15)
Frame (1)
Misc Tags (5)

image 10 and 13 are particularly creepy looking!

Have fun. And be sure to let me know if it works for you. I was fooled a couple of times playing with haruhi512.swf because the remote file was cached. In Firefox, Reload uses the cached data; highlighting the url in the address bar and pressing Enter does a true reload.

And don't let b.bngi-channel.jp know that we figured it out. There's a Mikuru and possibly a Yuki flash coming soon!

[Silasj]

Originally Posted by Richard 23

Actually it's easier than you think. Those png files are actually stored in another swf file. Take a closer look at the hex dump. You'll find: "original/FaceData.swf" in there.

To get the haruhi flash to work correctly locally you only need two files: haruhi512.swf (41k) and FaceData.swf (390k).

Just be sure that you save FaceData.swf in a subdirectory named "original" in the same directory as haruhi512.swf. You should then be able to open the haruhi512.swf file in your browser.

Good luck!

If you open FaceData.swf in Sothink SWF Decompiler you will find the data that appeared to missing from the main swf file.

Image (15)
Frame (1)
Misc Tags (5)

image 10 and 13 are particularly creepy looking!

Have fun. And be sure to let me know if it works for you. I was fooled a couple of times playing with haruhi512.swf because the remote file was cached. In Firefox, Reload uses the cached data; highlighting the url in the address bar and pressing Enter does a true reload.

And don't let b.bngi-channel.jp know that we figured it out. There's a Mikuru and possibly a Yuki flash coming soon!

Wow thanks a lot man, you're awesome, I just can't make it work somehow though. I have the facedata in /flash/original and the haruhi in /flash, what could I be doing wrong?

And yeah, I'm looking forward for the Yuki and Mikuru one's I'll be a bit disappointed if it's Kyon xD

[Richard 23]

Hmmm, you're right. I'll have to look into it some more. It was probably working due to the Firefox cache again. My suspicion originally was that the script checked for the base url and if it wasn't loaded from home, it wouldn't work. Maybe there's another file required. I'll look through the hex dump for FaceData.swf. I haven't actually done that yet, since I thought it was working.

Over at dannychoo, a commenter said there were two other files. Maybe he was right. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

[Silasj]

Originally Posted by Richard 23

Hmmm, you're right. I'll have to look into it some more. It was probably working due to the Firefox cache again. My suspicion originally was that the script checked for the base url and if it wasn't loaded from home, it wouldn't work. Maybe there's another file required. I'll look through the hex dump for FaceData.swf. I haven't actually done that yet, since I thought it was working.

Over at dannychoo, a commenter said there were two other files. Maybe he was right. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

Thanks a lot man

[Richard 23]

For what it's worth, I found the company that is responsible for this "Motion Portrait" technology.

Motion Portrait (Japanese), Auto-Translated, Demos, English Page. Note: there is more content (and more demos) on the Japanese version of the site, as usual. :-P And I've noticed that the embedded flash on the front page doesn't work when the page has been run through Google Translate. Hmmm. So it's not just uncooperative when being accessed locally.

I also found out that these "Motion Portrait" generated animations all follow a standard file hierarchy, including the Haruhi Flash. There are 3 files:

[whatever].swf
original/FaceData.swf
original/faceparam.data

But it still doesn't work locally in the browser. I found a discussion here, where someone claims that opening the flash locally in a browser doesn't work, but opening it in mplayerclassic does. It didn't work for me. Windows Media Player complained about needing a newer version of Macromedia Flash Player.

Sadly I still haven't found a technical discussion of "Motion Portrait" and there is no officially released software to generate these things or to examine existing ones. No technical docs or info of any kind that I can locate.

Apparently when the software is released it will be available here (Auto-Translated from Japanese).

Wild Goose Chase: I did notice that there's a file attribute property "Access" set to "network only". But editing a compiled swf with a hex editor isn't possible since the file's compressed. SWF Decompiler can apparently save a decompressed copy of the swf. I hacked into it with a hex editor and managed to figure out how to set the "Access" property to "local files only" but it didn't seem to make any difference.

That's all I've been able to figure out so far. Phooey. How weak! Are there any standalone Flash players? I've only seen Flash player as a browser plug-in.

I'm kind of surprised there isn't a tech doc out there yet by a determined hacker, but this appears to be a relatively new (and unreleased) application. Maybe nobody's figured it out yet. It apparently can generate these things with a single image. That's pretty impressive if true.

[WanderingKnight]

That's all I've been able to figure out so far. Phooey. How weak! Are there any standalone Flash players? I've only seen Flash player as a browser plug-in.

I'm not sure what you mean, given that Adobe Flash Player has been available since quite a while now.

[Richard 23]

Thanks WanderingKnight. I should have looked a little harder! I never needed a standalone player before, and I still don't. The local copy of the haruhi flash doesn't work in the standalone Flash Player either. Bah.

[Silasj]

Originally Posted by Richard 23

For what it's worth, I found the company that is responsible for this "Motion Portrait" technology.

Motion Portrait (Japanese), Auto-Translated, Demos, English Page. Note: there is more content (and more demos) on the Japanese version of the site, as usual. :-P And I've noticed that the embedded flash on the front page doesn't work when the page has been run through Google Translate. Hmmm. So it's not just uncooperative when being accessed locally.

I also found out that these "Motion Portrait" generated animations all follow a standard file hierarchy, including the Haruhi Flash. There are 3 files:

[whatever].swf
original/FaceData.swf
original/faceparam.data

But it still doesn't work locally in the browser. I found a discussion here, where someone claims that opening the flash locally in a browser doesn't work, but opening it in mplayerclassic does. It didn't work for me. Windows Media Player complained about needing a newer version of Macromedia Flash Player.

Sadly I still haven't found a technical discussion of "Motion Portrait" and there is no officially released software to generate these things or to examine existing ones. No technical docs or info of any kind that I can locate.

Apparently when the software is released it will be available here (Auto-Translated from Japanese).

Wild Goose Chase: I did notice that there's a file attribute property "Access" set to "network only". But editing a compiled swf with a hex editor isn't possible since the file's compressed. SWF Decompiler can apparently save a decompressed copy of the swf. I hacked into it with a hex editor and managed to figure out how to set the "Access" property to "local files only" but it didn't seem to make any difference.

That's all I've been able to figure out so far. Phooey. How weak! Are there any standalone Flash players? I've only seen Flash player as a browser plug-in.

I'm kind of surprised there isn't a tech doc out there yet by a determined hacker, but this appears to be a relatively new (and unreleased) application. Maybe nobody's figured it out yet. It apparently can generate these things with a single image. That's pretty impressive if true.

Sugoi you're so into it
A guy I know suggested just using a program to download everything on the server that could be related to flash files, like downloading everything with a *swf suffix. Yet I never actually found out how to do it

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by Silasj

Sugoi you're so into it
A guy I know suggested just using a program to download everything on the server that could be related to flash files, like downloading everything with a *swf suffix. Yet I never actually found out how to do it

I'm assuming your friend is talking about a "site ripper," or whatever they're called, a program that takes a url and then fetches everything linked to on that page to make a local offline copy. I used to do that quite a bit on my iMac. Basically it examines the html pages it finds to build a local directory hierarchy of files. It wouldn't really help here since only "haruhi.swf" is linked on the page that displays the flash animation. The other two files are referenced inside the flash file. Also "faceparam.data" isn't an swf file. Somebody will figure it out eventually, I guess. But we're at a dead end for now.

I suspect that the "network only" flag requires that the files in the "original" directory must be retrieved via http, which doesn't happen when the files are local. This could be verified by uploading the files to another website and trying it there. Perhaps I'll try that sometime in the next week or so.

Maybe it will be possible to localize these files when/if "Motion Portrait" is released to the public.

[Dreamslayer]

I also tried to get the Haruhi motion portrait on my xp desktop without any success.

Now that I've got Vista I tried again, but alas Vista doesn't have active desktop. I found out the Vista's sidebar supports embedding flash in a gadget, and I made one. It works but it has a thick white border, better then nothing I suppose.

Also, I can't use the gadget to load the files locally. There may indeed be a limitation in only loading it remotely.

[moyung]

it doesnt work as my active desktop. how do u make it work?
if only someone could make the exe into swf file with the same output, i can make this thing worked on desktop.

[Eviltape]

If you have Windows Vista Ultimate (which I can deduce you don't, so I'm posting this to use up some time), you can encode the file into an mpg and set that as your desktop. Yay for Windows Dreamscene!