# Animated Trail

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [June 25, 2003, 12:17pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023 "2003-06-25T12:17:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Bod](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Bod)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 12:17pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023/1 "2003-06-25T12:17:16Z")

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I’m very new to Flash and I’m trying to make animated cards for my work’s noticeboard.

In my animation, I have a bee buzzing in a heart shape. I have no trouble with the bee following a motion guide layer. The problem is that I need the bee to leave a visible trail of the heart shape he has flown along, as he goes along it. I’ve been trying for hours to sort this out and got nowhere!!

Please, has anyone got any suggestions?

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023/2 "2003-06-25T12:57:10Z")

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It depends on how you organized your fla, but something like this shoul work:

```auto
// actions in the first frame
// I supposed that your bee is called "bee" and that there's a clip called "trail" in the library
this.onEnterFrame = function(){
i++;
var clip = this.attachMovie("trail","trail"+i,i);
clip._x = bee._x;
clip._y = bee._y;
}

```

Basically, you attach a clip where the bee is on every new frame.

pom :phil:

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 12:59pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023/3 "2003-06-25T12:59:24Z")

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If you make a copy of the bee and change his position so he is slightly behind the first bee. Change his alpha value so he looks slightly faded. Then add another bee with an even lower alpha. Play around with the distance between bees, amount of alpha decrease and number of bees and you should end up with the effect required 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 1:03pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023/4 "2003-06-25T13:03:02Z")

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DOH, Posted same time…Actually Ilyas’ Version sounds better… Make the trail movie clip an alpha fade and it should look a lot smoother

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animated-trail/24023/5 "2003-06-25T15:16:13Z")

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Thanks for the advice.

So far I had made the trail as a single curved line but was unaware as to how to make it fade along a line. I told you I was knew at this!!!