Hello Everyone,\rThis may be more directed to Ilyaslamasse who helped me a lot with this. But all help is greatly appreciated.\rThe fla mechanism is at: www26.brinkster.com/stell/test.fla\r\rI have 2 questions:\r(1) Is it possible to attach a more complex shaped body as one of the links, and still be able to control it as a line in circular motion? (for a clearer idea see [url=“http://www26.brinkster.com/stell/eg.jpg)”]www26.brinkster.com/stell/eg.jpg)\r(2) When you try to change the connector or follower lengths, the line lengths do not changed, even though they have been scaled to the distance between the points (I figure this has something to do with the way the lines were initialised, but I’m confused - please explain this to me Ilyaslamasse!)\r\rThanks again!\rStella
Sorry, those links aren’t working. Try:\rwww.personal.psu.edu/user…7/test.fla\rand\r[url=“http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/m/smc927/eg.jpg”]www.personal.psu.edu/user…927/eg.jpg\r\rThanks,\rStella
OK, about that shape thing, it’s totally doable. What you have to do is use the rotation technique, not the scaling technique everywhere, and then make the movie clip of the shape move accordingly. I know it’s not clear at all. I can’t make the fla tonight, but I will tomorrow, if you haven’t got helped by then.\r\rpom 0]
I don’t get the other question : the connectors lenght ?? What do you want to do exactly ?\rpom 0]
thank you very much 
please, there is absolutely no rush on this for me.\r\rWith the 2nd question, if you try and type a ‘connector length’ of 80 in, then press the green button to the left, you can see the connector doesn’t change length.\r\rthanks,\rstella
Wow, complicated… I think it needs rewriting a little bit. 
\rpom 0]
Even if you could tell me how to go on (without recoding it), I would appreciate that \rThanks!\rstella
I did a small movie that shows you how to rescale the line. It’s here :\rwww.multimania.com/ilyasl…stella.fla\rpom 0] \r\rThe problem with your animation is that you use these variables, cranklenght and all, where you should use _xscale only. You’ll see, to make the line longer or shorter, you just have to mess with the _xscale property.\r\rAnd your movie is vERY VERY hard to debug. I tried, I couldn’t. I suggest to redo it from scratch, without those darn variables.\rTell me how you’re doing.
thanks, good advice I no longer have the problem of the line not scaling!\rIt’s at: www.personal.psu.edu/smc927/stella2.fla\r\rbut the lines that meet at points don’t seem to coincide at that exact point (they kind of overlap here and there). I’m not sure why.\r\rthanks!\rstella
Yeah, that’s strange. But the rescaling does work, congratulations !\rpom 0] \rDid you solve the problem ?
I solved one of them! The other is (1) above.\rYou mentioned I could use rotation to control the motion of more complex shaped bodies, but I have no idea how you would identify/define control points on a body so that you can control their rotation (just like you essentially control the end points of lines in the existing fla).\rAny advice on this would be great!\rthanks!\rstella
Did I really say that ?\rpom 0]
Yes you did!\rwake up … pom!\rNo, just kidding \rIt’s ok to take it back, I haven’t found any help on such a function anywhere online so far. I’m guessing either it can’t be done or I’m using the wrong keywords.\rstella
What I meant was something else (I guess). If you’ve understood both ways of drawing lines between 2 points, you have seen that there is one that uses rescaling and the other that uses rotation. The problem with rescaling is that you cannot constrain the length of the line to a certain value, because of the rescaling. When you use the rotation method, you can do without rescaling, so you can constrain the length of the line.\r\rIf you wanted to do more complex shapes, you’d probably have to do it with the rotation method.\r\rpom 0]
ok, thanks. I think I got kind of what I want here:\rwww26.brinkster.com/stell/webcutter.fla\rjust that middle joint isn’t keeping still. (and I will change the geometry so the thing actually cuts)\rstella
do you mean it’s easier to achieve in moho?\rif so, that’s pretty impressive.\rthanks,\rstella