Adobe Flash CS4 Professional for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

More-Complex Animation Tasks

355

Using Movie-Clip Symbols

Figure 12.41 Drag an instance of your movie clip

from the Library panel to the Stage (top). Flash

places the instance in keyframe 1 (bottom).

Using Movie-Clip Symbols

You put movie-clip symbols to work by

placing an instance of a symbol on the Stage

in your Flash document. Unlike animated

graphic symbols, movie-clip symbols have

their own Timeline. A movie clip plays contin-

uously, like a little  lm loop, in a single frame

of the main movie. As long as the movie

contains no other instructions that stop the

clip from playing—a blank keyframe in the

Timeline for the layer containing the movie

clip, for example—the clip continues to loop.

As you work on your Flash document, you

can see only the  rst frame of a movie clip. To

view the animation of the movie-clip symbol

in context with all the other elements of your

movie, you must export the movie (by choos-

ing one of the test modes, for example). You

can preview the animation of the movie-clip

symbol by itself in the Library panel.

To place an instance of a movie clip:

1.

Follow the steps in “To convert an anima-

tion to a movie-clip symbol,” earlier in

this chapter.

2. Choose Insert > Scene.

Flash creates a new scene and displays

its Timeline: a single layer with a blank

keyframe in frame 1.  e Stage is empty.

3.

Access the Library panel and select the

Ping-PongClip symbol.

 e  rst frame of the animation appears

in the preview window.

4.

Drag a copy of the selected symbol to

the Stage.

Flash places the symbol in keyframe 1

(Figure 12.41). You don’t need to add any

more frames to accommodate the anima-

tion, but you must export the movie to

see the animation.

Chapter 12

356

Using Movie-Clip Symbols

Figure 12.42 Choose Control > Test Scene

to preview the animation of just one

scene in a movie.

Figure 12.43 The Exporting SWF Movie dialog

contains a progress bar and a button for canceling

the export.

Figure 12.44 Flash Player displays your movie in a

regular window. To exit the Player, close the window.

To view the movie-clip animation

in context:

1.

Continuing with the movie you created

in the preceding task, choose Control >

Test Scene (Figure 12.42).

Flash exports the movie to a Flash Player

format  le, adding the name of the scene

and the .swf extension to the  lename and

using the current publishing settings for all

the export options. (For more information

on publishing settings, see Chapter 18.)

During export, Flash displays the Exporting

SWF Movie dialog, which contains a

progress bar and a Stop (Mac) or Cancel

(Windows) button for canceling the

operation (Figure 12.43).

When it  nishes exporting the movie,

Flash opens the SWF  le in Flash Player

so you can see the movie in action

(Figure 12.44).

2.

When you’ve seen enough of the movie in

test mode, click the movie window’s Close

button (Mac) or Close box (Windows) to

exit Flash Player.