Flash question
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- Projectile
Duplicating a symbol -
so often I find myself wanting to duplicate and modify a symbol.
Like for example if I have a little character jump up and down, but I want to make another that's blue, and one with a backpack... Cue endless hassle of having to duplicate every graphic/tween and object within those, and then swap symbol on every damn keyframe so that the original doesn't become blue as well.
Is there any workaround for this? Ideally I'd love a "mode" where you can duplicate things and edit them without it affecting the original.. as you would in Illustrator.
- isleptwithsirenstonight0
Make a movie of your character jumping.
Place two of them on the stage and change the color of one to blue.
Draw the original with a backpack on that you can switch to visible or not with AS.- If your character is a solid color stick man that is.isleptwithsirenstonight
- fadein110
This is something I always had issues with back in the Flash days... never understood why tweens etc. are not duplicated as separate entities so when you make a change to one clip it doesn't affect another - it did my head in. But to be fair I didn't take time to delve into solving the issue as Flash wasn't really my main thing.
- oop ;-D
those in library are objects.
those on the stage instances of the objects.uan - ^ makes no difference - instance or not - still if I edited one tween it would change another - happened countless timesfadein11
- I do accept i must have been doing it wrong though.fadein11
- I have to admit maybe I'm wrong, because I don't know how to work with tween very well. had always movieclips I think...it's been a while.uan
- this is tweens within a movieclip - if you duplicate the MC, the tween is the same in both MCs so edit one the other changed grrrrfadein11
- oop ;-D
- fyoucher10
Yep, natively and with the help of some Flash extensions and commands (you'd install both). Makes it super easy. Even with symbols that have linked moveiclips inside of them.
Hit me up if you want them. You just need to install the commands from the Command menu and the extensions via Extension manager. Then the command will appear under the Command Menu, and the extension would appear as a separate panel in the IDE.
- uan0
alt drag the one you want to duplicate.
right click the new instance and select 'Duplicate Symbol'.
set the new name, this should create a new symbol in the library.- Yeh, but pain in butt when u have nested child symbols on layers, many of them. My stuff will do it all automatically, and rename instances on all keyframesfyoucher1
- yep - this doesn't solve the issue you have at all - I always did this and had the same problem.fadein11
- I have solved this by copy paste the symbol into a new flash doc, renamed the objects in the library and copy pasted them back into my anim. would that work?uan
- not sure if auto renaming worked on importing a library from another flash doc into the library.uan
- new flash doc will work of course lol - but what if you want to similar MCs in one flash file.fadein11
- to = twofadein11
- you reimport them...see feel's response in other postuan
- feel0
yea, theres no work arround for this.
one thing that can speed up the process, is that you can do the swap in the first frame, then onion skin all of the keyframes and run again the swap operation in the history window. that will change all symblols on all keyframes, so you don't have to dig every frame.
but that works for 1 symbol only, you'll still have to do it with all the symbols on all layers.
- My stuff will do everything everyone is mentioning automatically. I'll post a link belowfyoucher1
- fyoucher10
Not entirely sure if these work with CC. I have them on CS6 but I’d imagine they should work in CC as well. I’ve been using these same ones for years, well before CS6. In any case, I’ve also created ZXP versions for CC as well, but try the MXP versions first.
Link to ZIP in side comments ——>
Flash Extensions:
- You’ll need to install using Adobe Extension Manager.
- They’ll then appear as a panel in the IDE, via Window > Other Panels > Whatever Extension you just installed.
- Then just rearrange that panel to wherever you want it so it’s easily accessible.
- I save my app window setup as a separate WorkSpace (Window > Workspace)Useful Panels Flash Extension, best thing ever:
- There will be TWO panels: one called “Useful Instance Helper” and another called “Useful Timeline Helper”
- Useful Instance Helper will allow you to rename all instances on a layer, so you don’t have to manually select each keyframe and rename. Just select the layer you want to change, go to the panel and type in an instance name, then click Set.
- It’ll also give you the ability to swap a single instance or and entire layer’s instances. Just select an object in the Library, select a layer, then click either ’Swap on Layer’ or ’Swap Selected’.
- Useful Timeline Helper is another great one. I really only use it to automatically create Actions/Labels layers and to toggle a layer to a Guide layer.Commands:
- Install by copying and pasting the file into your User Library for Adobe Flash. You’ll need to dig around, that folder is in there somewhere.
- Library > Application Support > Adobe > Flash CS6 > en_US > Configuration > Commands
- They should now appear under the Commands menu
- Alternatively, you can manually run the command by going to the Command menu and selecting the file.
- Personally, I add it to the Commands folder and then set a keyboard shortcut for it.I sent two: Duplicate Folder and Duplicate Layer. Again, best to make a keyboard shortcut.
Duplicate Folder: Select folder in Library, then run command. It’ll make a copy of everything in the folder. However, nest movie clips will still link to the original. This is where Useful Instance Helper comes in handy. Just go into the movie clip, select the layer, select the duplicated movie clip in the library, then click Swap on Layer. If you have a timeline animation or symbols on a timeline and you want to duplicate the layer and swap it out with all-new duplicated clips, this is where Duplicate Layer comes in handy. Just select the layer, then run the command, then follow the above to swap with duplicated instances, then use the batch renaming thing I mentioned above.
You’re welcome.
- Linky > http://www.davi-t.co…fyoucher1
- Not that Flash is still relevant..fyoucher1
- i still use it for animation, you can use swf files directly in after effects with scalability like a vectorfeel
- incredible this functionality wasn't part of the app.fadein11
- there's like tons of crazy little things like that they didn't fix, but instead moved to as3 and destroyed the platform introducing bloated, buggy and insecureuan
- code. Hubris.uan
- feel0
I just tought a work around, not sure if it works well, but you could try... just to simply duplicate the shit out of every movieclip
so what you could do, is to copy and paste the character movieclip into a new flash file, do the things you have to do to change it.
then I save it I guess... and then copy and paste it into the original file, it will ask if you want to replace the original ones or not, if you choose not, you may end up with two copies of the same movieclip and all its dependancies.
not sure tho... just thought of it right now
- feel0
yes! it works, just choose this option
and it will create a duplicated folder with all them movieclips man