mask made in swift 3d stops underlying movie clip playing

Is this something like you were talking about? It uses two masks.
www.triadis.net/swift3d/et_new.html

Triadis

Triadis! Holy crap. mail that fla to me man...

JEEZ... I totally forgot you made that!

damn.

Vince

Triadis that seems to be exactly what I am trying to do, and a little more!
You have two masks revealing two seperate movie clips is that correct?
I was just starting with one of each.
Would you be fabulous enough to email me the fla? [email protected]

To pope, I have fooled about with your idea, I am a bit unclear, when you said..

"The best solution I have come up with is to put the mask and the movie clip into a new movie clip and make the movie clip a graphic. "

did you mean make the new movie clip a graphic by changing its properties after making it, or make the internal movie clip under the mask a graphic? I cant seem to make it work.

Also cant seem to locate the thread you refer to.

thanks for your input everyone.

yahoo, got it to work, thanks,
the underlying clip must be made a graphic, I never would have thought of that.
I thought I was being real clever with this idea and triadis has already done it, ego deflation!
So on to the double mask, which was what I invisaged, now I know it can be done!!
Thanks again, this was the only flash bulletin board where anyone seemed to have a clue about what I was attempting, seemed to go right over heads even at macromedia.
Mark

This is a confusing problem to describe and so far I have had no luck with any of the replies to my other posts so I shall try and be very detailed in this description.

A movie with two layers.

into the top layer I import an swf file which comes in as 40 individual keyframes.
this imported movie is flat, one layer, one solid single color shape per frame.
this movie was created in swift3d using flat rendering, no lines, no lights to get a blank vector shape of a single text character to act as a mask.
no motion tweening or alpha effects etc are used.

below this on the second layer I place a movie clip symbol.
the movie clip symbol contains several layers and motion paths.

When I test the movie both layers animate perfectly on top of each other.

Now I make the top layer a mask.

I test the movie, the mask layer is masking and animating perfectly

The movie clip shows through from beneath the mask, but it does not play, just displays its static first frame.

I have tried some other things to try and track down the problem.

I created another movie and placed the same movie clip on the bottom layer.

On the top layer I created a series of single keyframes into which I drew a series of shapes, 1 shape per frame in flash (as opposed to importing a swf in problem file).

I made the shapes layer a mask, tested and it worked perfectly. both layers animated, clip showed through only in mask.

I tried breaking apart the symbol in each keyframe of the swift 3d generated movie after importing it to the mask layer. I then filled each object with the paint bucket, making it a single, flash created object. Still no luck, underlying movie clip did not play.

I have tried different movie clips on the bottom layer.

What could it be about this paticular masking layer that STOPS the underlying movie clip from playing???

thanks for any help
totally stumped Mark

If you look in this tread you will see that Vince and I have been banging our heads trying to find a work around. The only thing I have found so far is to make the Movie clip a graphic and then it works. The best solution I have come up with is to put the mask and the movie clip into a new movie clip and make the movie clip a graphic. Make sure you set the clip animation to loop with the new Movie clip. Meaning if you have 20 frames in you old movie clip make sure your mask animation is in frame sets of 20. Regards, Bill

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Macromedians 1:1

In the beginning the web was without shape and color, and the hype covered the darkness of the net. Then there was a Flash and life came to the web and vision became reality.

Wait, pope, are you saying that you define a movie clip as a grpahic, or that you can only use a graphic?

In mask hell,
Vince

Its a movie clip that you set the atribute to be a graphic in the properties dialog box. The only advantage is that you dont have to rebuild everything you already have.
I am working on another approach for changing the color chips but its going to use a hell of alot of "if" statements. I'll call you tonight if your going to be around. Just let me know. Regards, Bill

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Macromedians 1:1

In the beginning the web was without shape and color, and the hype covered the darkness of the net. Then there was a Flash and life came to the web and vision became reality.

Yeah, as I was saying before you'll only need to change the color of about 12 squares at any one time.

It's a biziatch of a problem.

Vince - and I KNEW there were going to be alot of if thens... that's why I wanted to figure out the process first before I got too involved with making masks and what not.

Hi again,
I have success with the two masks, now I am experimenting with adding sound.

I created a movie clip to place under my animated masks that contains an audio track. I changed the property to graphic as before, and audio still worked.

Then I placed the graphic under my animated masks. I animates but I get no audio. Is it not possible to have audio under the mask?

I thought of this solution, I placed a not visible button with the audio track in its up state beneath beneath the masks. I thought the audio would loop continuously in the up state.
No luck.
I placed it in the over state and it works on mouse over. How do I make it just loop with the movie clip/graphic?
Is the button even necessary?

Mark