# Masking inside movie clips?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-inside-movie-clips/282716>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [February 25, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-inside-movie-clips/282716 "2009-02-25T16:44:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Phandral](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Phandral](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Phandral)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/masking-inside-movie-clips/282716/1 "2009-02-25T16:44:33Z")

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Hey everyone,

I’m new around these parts and to Flash CS4. Getting down to it, I always wanted Flash to emulate After Effects’ animation environment after Adobe acquired it from Macromedia, but you know what they say about being careful what you wish for…

After a bit of struggling and plenty of cussing, I’m finally starting to get used to the new interface and the behavior of the motion editor/new motion tween protocols. That said, I’m still having trouble with a few concepts, namely viewing animated masks inside “3D” movieclips. Does this not work at all, or am I doing something wrong?

Slightly off topic, one thing I’ve always been curious about is why you can’t preview animation happening inside a movie clip on the stage. Is there any technical reason I’m too blind and/or stupid to notice? Otherwise it seem like something they’d allow to do in all this time!

Thanks in advance!