dynamically place movie clips around a circle

[TheTrooper]

I need some help here please, I pretty much a math-tard in general that why I am posting here, hoping someone more mathematically inclined than I can help out.

I want to create a sort of circular menu, that dynamically places MC's to form a circle or on a curved path. I could easily do it the non programmers way, but I would like to be able to easily update it in the future. Anyone got a .fla siiting around like this they are willing to share?

My vision is that I can define a variable like num_menus = 16 for example, and the function(makeMenu) or whatever will place them in the correct x, y coordinates..... thats about as far as i can get before my head starts hurting.

see attached gif for a visual

[catbert303]

Hi,

You could try something like this,

code:

---

var origin = {x: 250, y: 200}; // object representing the centre of the circle

var radius = 100; // pixels radius

var numItems = 16; // how many items round the circle

var spacing = 2 * Math.PI / numItems; // how far to space them apart

var depth = 0;

for (var i = 0; i < 2 * Math.PI; i += spacing) {

	var mc = this.attachMovie("obj", "obj" + ++depth, depth); // attach a clip from the library, with linkage name obj

	mc._x = origin.x + Math.cos(i) * radius; // position the new clip

	mc._y = origin.y + Math.sin(i) * radius;

}

---

[TheTrooper]

thanks for that. I tried it using an onClipEvent(load) and it worked fine...next question I have is...how do I show 16 different graphics in the duplicated clip?

Should i build an array with the dup names and assign each a graphic?

[catbert303]

Hi,

You could either create separate movie clips for each menu item or have a single movie clip containing multiple frames with the different images in different frames.

for example you could create 16 clips and give each a different linkage identifier, then store each linkage id in an array,

code:

---

ids = ["someClip", "anotherClip", "andSoOn"];

---

then when you run the loop you could use the depth counter to pick the next clip to be displayed,

code:

---

var mc = this.attachMovie(ids[depth], "obj" + depth, depth);

depth++;

---

or you could have all the different images in the same clip and when the clip is attached send it to the desired frame (if the images each occupied a single frame you could use,

code:

---

var mc = this.attachMovie("obj", "obj" + depth, depth);

mc.gotoAndStop(++depth);

---

[TheTrooper]

excellent, thank you very much...now i get it. That makes me quite happy. thanks for sharing your brain