Adobe Flash —

Add an effect to the movie clip

You can create an animation within a movie clip Timeline, in symbol-editing mode, that plays independent of the main Timeline. You'll add an effect to the MCWheel symbol that will cause all instances of the symbol to spin.

  1. With the Selection tool, double-click the wheel_mc instance to enter symbol-editing mode.

  2. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the symbol and select Timeline Effects > Transform/Transition > Transform.

  3. In the Transform dialog box, enter 60 in the Effect Duration text box to specify that the effect spans 60 frames in the Timeline.

  4. In the Spin text box, enter 1 and verify that 360 populates the Rotate text box.

  5. Click Update Preview to view a preview of the effect and click OK.
    The effect spans 60 frames in the movie clip Timeline.

  6. Click Scene 1 above the Timeline to exit symbol-editing mode.

  7. Select Control > Test Movie to view the animation.

Summary

Congratulations on learning about symbols and instances. In a few minutes, you accomplished the following tasks:

  • Create a graphic symbol.

  • Duplicate and modify an instance.

  • Create a movie clip symbol.

  • Edit a symbol by adding an effect.

To learn more about Flash, take another lesson in the Basic Tasks series.