# Are depths particular to movieclips?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/are-depths-particular-to-movieclips/136361>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [February 4, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/are-depths-particular-to-movieclips/136361 "2005-02-04T03:25:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lunatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/73ab20/32.png) [@lunatic](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/lunatic)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/are-depths-particular-to-movieclips/136361/1 "2005-02-04T03:25:00Z")

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Okay I feel kinda dumb for asking this, like I should know it intuitively by now, and maybe I"m thinking about it too much, but I couldn’t find the answer in Sen’s flash limits thread so here goes:

Are depths particular to the timeline of the movieclip you refer to it? In other words, let’s say you have actionscript to duplicate a movieclip 100 times, each time putting the new one on the next depth. But the code and the movieclip to be duplicated are themselves inside a movie clip. Are those depths inside that movieclip?

So for instance, let’s say the parent movieclip lies on the maintime. And on a layer above that is a button. Are those duplicated movieclips going to be visibly above or below the button?

A tangible example:  
I would like to have a smoke/steam effect that uses duplicateMC and depths. But I need the effect to be underneath other movieclips at certain times. Can I just contain the effect inside a movieclip that sits on a layer below other movieclips on the maintimeline? Or do I need to stop the effect and do a swapdepth with whatever the last depth was?

Hope this isn’t too confusing. I’ve managed to confuse myself quite nicely. :beam: