# Animating duplicated clips

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [September 7, 2004, 11:01am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493 "2004-09-07T11:01:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ntshp](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/ntshp/32/746_2.png) [@ntshp](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/ntshp)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2004, 11:01am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/1 "2004-09-07T11:01:53Z")

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Hey,

I having more problems with the attachmovie feature.

Anyway, I want to duplicate a movieclip several times and then give them a motion guide(is this possible?). I can do the attaching part, im just stuck with actually making it move

If not how would you go about duplicating something and then setting it off in motion? I would just keep changing there x/y cords but its not a straight path

With this I would also need to start the duplicated clip a bit behind the previous movieclip so that it looks like one is following the other.

Any input or ideas apperciated thx

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 12:16pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/2 "2004-09-07T12:16:41Z")

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if you find a way to set the motion guide then good or else,

put an invisible movieclip on stage and put a guide on it.

then set the \_x, \_y of the attached movieclip according to it

this is an interesting idea. if possible, show me when you are done

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/3 "2004-09-07T12:24:41Z")

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> [@amitgeorge](#):
>
> if you find a way to set the motion guide then good or else,
> 
> put an invisible movieclip on stage and put a guide on it.
> 
> then set the \_x, \_y of the attached movieclip according to it
> 
> this is an interesting idea. if possible, show me when you are done

How do you mean, allow something to follow the motion guide and then track its \_x/\_y?  
Not a bad idea, but I still have a porblem of staggering the others

I will post the swf once done 😉

thx for the input

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/4 "2004-09-07T17:36:58Z")

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you could store the \_x and \_y of the guided invisible movieclip and use it after a delay so the movieclip would apear staggered like a tail. if you need multiple clips then you can use a queue type array where like

in instance 1 a[x1] = \_x  
in instance 2 a[x2] = a[x1], a[x1] = \_x  
in instance 3 a[x3] = a[x2], a[x2] = a[x1], a[x1] = \_x  
and so on till n

in last instance you forget about the a[x(n)]

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/5 "2004-09-07T19:48:17Z")

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This is created in a very similar way to the one described by AmitGeorge  
[http://www.gifsrus.com/testfile/motionpaththing.swf](http://www.gifsrus.com/testfile/motionpaththing.swf)  
i first dragged an mc from the library and motion with guide storing \_x,\_y in an Array. I`ve left the trace i used so you can see and obviously the surplus frames could be deleted.

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/6 "2004-09-07T20:37:29Z")

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> [@stringy](#):
>
> This is created in a very similar way to the one described by AmitGeorge  
> [http://www.gifsrus.com/testfile/motionpaththing.swf](http://www.gifsrus.com/testfile/motionpaththing.swf)  
> i first dragged an mc from the library and motion with guide storing \_x,\_y in an Array. I`ve left the trace i used so you can see and obviously the surplus frames could be deleted.

\>\>:hugegrin:\<\<  
Enough said  
A great example with some added scaling

Learnt a few things from the code and can now see how its working

Prior to your reply I gave up in the end with motion guides and moved over to the dark side…trigonometry  
I got it working using trig as well, but it will only move in a circular fashion with some editing im sure I could change the shape that it takes but would require some more sketches…

thx amitgeorge for the ideas and stringy, especially for takin the time to make the fla 😃

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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:** [September 7, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/animating-duplicated-clips/63493/7 "2004-09-07T21:11:00Z")

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no problem