# Overlapping MC problem - swapDepth's?

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/overlapping-mc-problem-swapdepths/154780
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [July 12, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/overlapping-mc-problem-swapdepths/154780 "2005-07-12T18:13:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![daveg92656](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@daveg92656](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/daveg92656)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/overlapping-mc-problem-swapdepths/154780/1 "2005-07-12T18:13:38Z")

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Hi,  
I’m having problems with depth’s in a FlashMX movie. I think part of it is because I use actionscript for some, then use Flash to draw others…I have read the depth’s tut’s from Kirupa, Senocular & others, but still confused.

I use both, actionscript to createEmptyMC’s and drag & drop flash objects from library to populate the stage. When using actionscript you need to specify the depth, so I know that depth. But the objects I drag & dropped onstage, I cannot figure those depth’s out.

I am having troubles with overlapping MC’s. For example, my background I use “CreateEmptyMC” and assign it a depth 1000. Then I have scanlines on top of that at depth 900. I call this actionscript in layer 3 of the main timeline. With that high of a depth, it overlaps everything. But when I use a low depth, like 1, or 5, the background is not even drawn.

Then, main timeline, layer 6, I populate the stage with MC’s I had “drawn” in flash, not using actionscript (drag & drop from library). However, here I cannot specifiy the depth.

When I play my movie, the background & scanlines are “overlapping” my MC’s on layer 6, because of the high number used, but low numbers, nothing shows up.

My thoughts: First, I thought the layers would help, so I moved the actionscript above the level 6 MC’s, this did not fix the problem. Second, I tried creating my background & scanlines with assigned depths of 1 & 2, but found this did not create my background & scanlines MC’s at all??!! Nothing worked, my background is either still overlapping layer 6 MC’s or not drawn at all !!

I have read about \_root.MC.swapDepth, or .getDepth. Should I use those to determine the depth and swap my background & MC ? If so, how? the MC’s on level 6 are actually masked pictures, so they actually take up level 6 & the mask is in level 7.

The easiest way is to just draw my background & scanlines using Flash not actionscript, but I want to use AS more, not less !! Please help !

My .FLA is too large to upload.

Thank you !! Dave.