Reader Question: What's the difference between a graphic and a movie clip?
Wednesday May 14, 2008
Jess asks:
"I have been trying to learn Flash Pro 8 and have started to do some simple animations. I just wanted to know what the difference is between a movie symbol and a graphic symbol and when to use one or the other."The basic difference between a movie clip and a graphic is that a graphic is a static object, while a movie clip is not. When you're working in Flash, a graphic symbol may look like it has its own timeline, but when you publish it acts as a single static image in Flash. Nothing you do on additional frames really shows unless you do some rather odd tweaking with ActionScripts, while movie clip symbols are designed to play like little mini Flash movies all their own inside your main SWF. Movie clips also have more ActionScripts that can be applied to them.
In addition, in Flash 8, you can use filters on movie clips. You can't on graphic symbols.
I've gotten so into the habit of using movie clips for everything that I'd almost forgotten about graphic symbols. They have their uses, but for the most part, movie clips are just more convenient.
Comments
A graphic can also have more content and animation, but the animation runs along with the main timeline. So only if the main timeline has 1 frame, the graphic will show as a static image. If the main timeline is longer, the other frames of the graphic will show up.
bert said:
A graphic can also have more content and animation, but the animation runs along with the main timeline. So only if the main timeline has 1 frame, the graphic will show as a static image. If the main timeline is longer, the other frames of the graphic will show up.
And a Movie Clip cannot?