Housing multiple mouth frames in one symbol and switching between them

[Behonkiss]

I read a tutorial a while back about making a symbol for a character's mouth in an animation, and making multiple frames within the symbol, with one for each different mouth position I'd like to use (Open and saying a certain letter, smiling, frowning, etc.). What I can't figure out is how to keep it from constantly animating repeatedly through all the mouth frames on its own in each shot when I just want it to stay in a certain position on certain sequences of frames. I also can't figure out how to select the precise frame I want when it needs to change.

I'm using CS4, if that means anything.

[Steven FN]

Just make a MovieClip with an instance name of "mouths" then put a stop action on the first frame of "mouths". Add more frames and give them frame labels accordingly, smiling mouth is labeled "smile", etc.

Then in your animation timeline, add actionscript that says:

mouths.gotoAndStop("smile");

You would add this into a separate layer from your animation, so you can select the precise frame to change on. Create new keyframes for each mouth change.

Hope that makes sense for you. This also assumes you are using AS2.