A question about mutliple instances on depths

[flashbeast]

var maxflakes:Number = 70;
for (var i = 0; i<maxflakes; i++) {
	var flake:MovieClip = attachMovie("snow", "flake", i);
	flake._x = Math.random()*Stage.width;
	flake._y = Math.random()*Stage.height;
	flake._alpha = 20+Math.random()*75;
	flake._xscale = flake._yscale=30+Math.random()*40;
}

ok, playing around with snowflake particles. I understand this code, but I don't know exactly why it works.

my interstanding is the variable flake, which is a movieclip, is recreated 70 times in this case. but why are 70 SEPARATE instances created, when they all have the same varialbe name? is it because of depths?

if in my script, I have cow="moo" then cow="moomo", cow will be equal to momo since that was run after, overwriting the previous. so how can this code not cause conflict?
and also, where I have 'flake' as my 'new identifier' parameter, how can I have 70 objects with the same name?




please clarifiy! thank you very much?


I understand HOW it works, but all I'm wondering is how can two instances, with the same name, exist at the same time. is it because they are on separate depths? we have 70 instances all named the same, how does that work?

[Jhonte]

attachMovie returns an id that you can use to manipulate the information of the mc.
That is your var flake:MovieClip.

So you dont use the "real" mc. If you later on want to change some attribute of all your mc:s you will find that you cant since they have the same name.

A simple solution is to add your flake into an array afterwards. (or change the name for all movieclips) (attachMovie("snow", _root["flake"+i], i);

var maxflakes:Number = 70;
var flakes_array:Array = new Array();
for (var i = 0; i<maxflakes; i++) {
	var flake:MovieClip = attachMovie("snow", "flake", i);
	flake._x = Math.random()*Stage.width;
	flake._y = Math.random()*Stage.height;
	flake._alpha = 20+Math.random()*75;
	flake._xscale = flake._yscale=30+Math.random()*40;
        flakes_array.push(flake);
}

And then use for instance:

flakes_array[0]._x = 100;

... and so on.