ActionScript 3.0 :: Flash CS5 IDE - Symbols And Nested Symbols And The Difference Between Graphics And Movie Clips And Scoping
Oct 26, 2010
I'm working through a book called Foundation Game Design with Flash, and I'm finding the Flash IDE confusing. I've been programming for several years, so working with AS3 directly is far easier than trying to understand symbols and nested symbols and the difference between graphics and movie clips and scoping issues and all that -- when tied into the IDE.
How many of you who are making games in AS3 also use the Flash IDE? Can anyone recommend a resource that is AS3 heavy and Flash IDE light? I don't care how much time I may or may not save by using things like the timeline, I just want to understand what I'm using.
I used this tut to create a menu. [URL] And my question is; Can I make the slider to move after a movie clip symbols instead of button symbols? That way my menu would be animated.
I'm looking to create an animation loop in Flash. The base character animation I have is 27 frames. However to have the background move at the correct speed, the entire animation is 432 frames.
Since I am making the animation so long anyway, I want the character to blink halfway through the animation loop. I went into the head symbol and extended its animation from a single frame to 432 frames. Halfway through that animation I swap out the image for one that is blinking (3 new images added for the blink).
So, now the symbols are nested like: 432 frames -> 27 frames -> 432 frames
But it doesn't seem like Flash is smart enough to animate it as I would expect. It only repeats the first 27 frames of the child symbol.
The next thing I tried was extending the 27 frame character animation out to 432 frames. I did this by copy-pasting the character animation 16 times. But this also does not work because copying the keyframes also copies the position of the child animation's playback. This causes the animation to constantly reset and never reach the blink.
I also tried using the copy motion option, but it didn't seem to do anything different than copying keyframes.Is there an easy way to make this animation work? I can't possibly need to manually position a total of 576 keyframes (there is actually another level to the nesting which does not use any tweens, just keyframes) could I?
I'm attempting to use CS4 (PC/Vista, if that matters) to create a SWF file that will basically act as a "library" of commonly used symbols. This SWF would be loaded at runtime by other SWFs, which could then use the symbols within it, including all art and code assets.
I've created a small animation containing a few images which i have converted to graphic symbols so I can alpha-tween them. I tweened the first image then copy/pasted the frames to do the next using the swap symbol function. When swapping the symbol I selected the desired symbol and pressed okay but nothing happened - I then dragged the desired symbol out of the library and onto the stage then deleted the previous symbol. As soon as I did that the new symbol I had just dragged out switched back to the previous symbol. [URL]. I have CS4 V10.0
I have created this madly complex menu rollout with buttons, tweens lables with dynamic text- you name it.now I want to duplicte this symbol and change its colour to make a new menu tab, but when I try to do this (by going into it and duplicating each nested part- I am getting a linkage error-**Warning** The linkage identifier 'Symbol1' was already assigned to the symbol 'Symbol 2', and cannot be assigned to the symbol 'Symbol 1', since linkage identifiers must be unique.
Let's say I have Class Holder linked to a MovieClip holder_mc. holder_mc has a child held_mc that has a Graphic Symbol pic_gr. pic_gr has multiple frames.
From the Class file of Holder, how would I change the frame of pic_gr? I also didn't see a way to name the instance of pic_gr, is that right?
Let's say I have Class Holder linked to a MovieClip holder_mc. holder_mc has a child held_mc that has a Graphic Symbol pic_gr. pic_gr has multiple frames.
From the Class file of Holder, how would I change the frame of pic_gr? I also didn't see a way to name the instance of pic_gr, is that right?
In flash, if you have a complicated graphic (like a complex diagram) that doesn't change much and you want to move/zoom/rotate it around, then does Flash perform better if you convert all graphics into symbols? Or does making symbols slow things down?
Background: Sometimes, you do things for so long, you can't remember why you started in the first place. Whenever I import graphics in flash (like from Illustrator, for example), I select everything, press cmd-B (or ctrl-B on Windows) repeatedly, "breaking apart" everything until I can't, anymore. Then I press F8 and create a symbol.
That's just what I've done for like the last 10 years. It's to the point where I don't even think about it, anymore. I vaguely remember doing this after learning that performance improves when you break apart graphics to create a symbol.
Now, I have a problem: I'm translating/rotating/scaling a massively complex, static diagram and it's too sloooow. I'm trying every technique I can think of to speed things up—every little bit counts.I've read this link and lots of others but I haven't come across the topic of creating symbols.
Summary:should I go back through and make everything a symbol? Should I go through and make everything NOT a symbol? Which is faster?
I'm working on a project that involves making a globe in flash which will have many particular points (all the worlds major cities by using their longitudes and latitudes). It's all 2D made to look 3D.To make the "Sphere," I put together some code that stacks a bunch of ovals that creates the illusion of space, ala the code below...
//AS3 function magicTrigFunctionX (pointRatio){ return Math.cos(pointRatio*2*Math.PI); }
[code]....
Now, my problem is that in order to assign the longitude and latitude information I need to be able to address each oval individually (not only which one, but also eventually the angle/radians of each oval for the latitude) and I've run into a snag...I don't know how or perhaps exactly what to do, because I know how to make it a symbol and class if the object was already made visually using the oval tool in the tool bar, but I can't figure out (after taking a bit of time looking up on how to use arrays and classes) how to do it in the AS3 code where I actually made the "sphere."
My SWF file plays properly, but if I open the file in After Effects the movie symbols don't play. Changing the movie symbols into graphic symbols works but then of course I lose my filters. I would export straight to MOV from Flash but that brings up so many other glitches. Basically I am looking for a good way to get video from flash.
I've created 5 different movie symbols that move a graphic symbol across the screen at various speeds. I want to create a movie that will play on continuous loop with the graphics moving across the screen with each symbol being generated in staggered time intervals. What I want to avoid is having the stage clear as each loop completes and the next one begins. I've tried to stagger by entering the start times of the movie symbols by entering them at different frames on the timeline, but as soon as the last frame plays, the whole screen clears.
I have two jpeg images that are converted to movie clip symbols. When attempting to scale one from zero out to infinity (zoom out look), I apply the classic tween and the image zooms out above the top of my document window instead of going straight out. Is there something I can troubleshoot to fix this? I belive the registration point on the symbol is in the center, but how can I confirm?
Im trying to move movie symbols that are held in an array.(array declaration var img:Array = [img1,img2,img3]; )[code]in a button click() function it works fine, but when I try to use the same code in the resizeHandler() function (btw which was off of Adobes website) it gives me the error 1009 message cannot load symbol and so forth.[code]
Should I use Movie Clip or Graphic Symbols for Character Animation? What do people who make TV shows use. If I'm not planning on manipulating any symbols with ActionScript and I'm not using a symbol that requires it's own time line like a walk cycle, is there any reason to use movie clips symbols? If I put my animation on the web will it download noticeably faster if I use graphic symbols instead of movie clip symbols?
I have 7 movie clip symbols which i would like to become visible using a timer.I would like to be able to make them appear one at a time, to a time of my choice after a 'start button' has been pressed.When the start button is pressed another movie clip already plays as a back ground.
I've made a movie which has symbols waiting to come onto my stage. When I watch it, all seems to be fine until I run a test. A random symbol sits in the top left corner not moving which isn't there when I watch it.
I've looked through all the layers and none of them are duplicated. When i do a test, this following message appears:WARNING: Multiple 3D objects on the same frame have the same instance name. 3D instance names must be unique. All but one of the instances will be renamed during export.
I've been going over several tutorials and whatnot and I'm confused on the point of movie clip symbols and motion tweens. To me using the other tweens and symbols are "easier". Can someone explain to me why they're so beneficial to have been added to CS4/CS5? Except I understand that movie clip symbols can be adjusted using the 3D tools but is that the only difference?
I know nothing about Flash Professional, but a friend has given me a .swf that supposedly contains some graphics that he wants imported into a Flex program - which I know a fair bit about.I have the .swf, but I have no idea what to put for "symbol". My friend doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about. How can I determine the symbol name to put in the 2nd parameter of the embed?[Embed(source='SomeSwf.swf', symbol='WhatGoesHere??')]Is there some way to browse the .swf, or some way to just import the whole thing and step through the symbols in actionscript?
All symbols have stopped rendering while in the IDE. They publish fine, but I can't see them on stage.
Details: Flash Pro CS4 10.0.2 Mac OS X 10.5.8 on MacBook Pro w/ 4GB RAM.Objects that are not symbols render fine (shapes, groups, text, components).Symbols are selectable and show the blue selection boundary.Symbol selection is constrained to the shape of the symbol, not the bounds.The 'empty clip' handle is shown for each symbol(and effects / filters are rendered on it).The layers are not hidden, and switching to outine doesn't change the appearance.All files opened on this Mac show this behavior(IDE pref setting for don't display symbols?) .Files openfine on other machines (PC & Mac).I trashed the 'Flash CS4 Preferences' file, but it didn't fix it.Here's the IDE view of the stage:
I have a movie clip, lets call this Container. This contains another 4 movie clips, BubbleRed, BubbleGreen, BubblePurple and BubbleGold. Each of these 4 movie clips have an animated time line.
When a Container is rolled over it is added to an array.
I have a function which does things to the Containers on the array.
However I have been trying to get the movie clips in the container to play.
Basically here is my code
Code: function Pop(m:Movieclip){ switch(m.currentFrame) { case 1:
[Code].....
And so on for the four bubbles. However when hovered over this code just breaks.
So I tried instead of BubbleRed, assigning the movie clips inside the container instance names, Red, Green, Purple, Gold.
This didn't result in a crash, however the time line of each instance still wouldn't play!
How would one go about masking movie clips that are nested within other movie clips?
I have a photo gallery slider type of thingy that loads jpegs with loadMovie into containers. I can mask the entire movie clip but as for the containers,...well I just dont know whats going on here.
The company I am working for has a flash component (using flex and cs4) that crashes intermittently in chrome, FF and IE. (so far only win32 platforms)
I submitted a bug report to Adobe but have not heard anything back from them. Their support process seems like a black hole. WE can get a dump from Flash using these steps but after submitting the bug we got no help at all.
We loaded this into MS visual studio but can;t get decent stack information because there are no symbols for the flash stuff.
Microsoft and other companies provide symbols to help with debugging and we would like to get that from adobe. Is there any way to make progress on this?
Does anyone know where to get flash symbols or how else we can make progress?
It is hard to debug the process if the container just dies.
the binary is flash10c.ocx
I just spent a painful hour on the phone with adobe folks - and the final answer from one of them (I spoke to about 8 people) was that they do not have a per incident purchase plan for developer support for flash.
this is one of those upsurdly basic questions for which google does not work. I have usually dispatched events from my classes and dealt with the user interface in the document class. But now i want to separate all the UI in a separate class, accessible by other classes. have added it as a child to the main/document class, but how do i reference the main class without going through parent.parent shananigans?dit. one more thing i remembered. Some of my UI elements are not programatically added.here is the code i have. i get possibly undefined property error.
I have an input text field for email address that is not allowing me to type anything but letters, numbers, spaces, and * I need to be able to type @ as this is an email address input field... Is there a setting I can change to allow for this?
I have two objects; background and highlight. Highlight has a certain amount a opacity set to it 45%, so it appears lighter then the background. I want to color just the background in as3/flash builder 4, but when I color the flash symbol, the highlight region also gets colored and I don't want to do that.
I also don't want to have two separate symbols, because then I'll have to add more code and variables.Is there any way to color just the background and let the highlight object just be?
