# setMask question
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [July 14, 2003, 7:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591 "2003-07-14T19:37:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pspecial](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/pspecial)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2003, 7:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/1 "2003-07-14T19:37:39Z")
How would one go about masking movie clips that are nested within other movie clips?
Is it even possible??
I have a photo gallery slider type of thingy that loads jpegs with loadMovie into containers. I can mask the entire movie clip but as for the containers,…well I just dont know whats going on here.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2003, 7:41pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/2 "2003-07-14T19:41:13Z")
I don’t quite get your question, but basically, you can get all your masks inside one movieclip, call that maskMC, and then set that as a mask on the maskeeMC
maskeeMC.setMask(maskMC)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/3 "2003-07-14T20:42:14Z")
Funny, I dont quite get your answer.
Are you saying that I can nest masks movie clips within a masked movie clip??
I’ll try to make this clearer…
Basically, I need to be able to mask the movie clips that are nested within another movie clip. I can mask the main mc, but all other mc’s inside the main mc dont show. I try to mask to the target but that doesnt work either.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/4 "2003-07-15T13:52:07Z")
OK, I didn’t understand the questions so well, but basically:
A mask can only mask one target, so if you want to mask several separate clips with the same mask, you’ll have to put all the targets inside a container which will be masked.
A target can only have on emask, so if you want that several clips mask the same clip, you’ll have to put all your masks inside a container clip that will be set as mask.
That’s pretty much as clear as I can be :-\
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/5 "2003-07-15T16:43:36Z")
Okay, I got it so far.
But there seems to be a problem with the .jpgs that are being loaded in to my container mc which is nested in the mc that holds everything I’d like to mask. I am using LoadMovie method to get the jpgs into the container.
Would this screw up the mask somehow?
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/6 "2003-07-15T17:05:02Z")
something like this you mean?
```auto
//function which checks that jpg fully loaded into img clip before set this
//mask on the outer clip
outerClip.setMask("myMask");
```
ie you should have some function which checks that the img container clip has loaded its jpg before you set the mask on the ‘outer’ clip …
Anyway if you could post a snippet of your AS it would help.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/setmask-question/25591/7 "2003-07-15T20:15:53Z")
Good idea. Here it is:
\_root.reel\_mc.placeholder1.loadMovie(“ka.jpg”);
\_root.reel\_mc.placeholder2.loadMovie(“ka.jpg”);
\_root.reel\_mc.placeholder3.loadMovie(“ka.jpg”);
\_root.reel\_mc.placeholder4.loadMovie(“ka.jpg”);
\_root.reel\_mc.setMask(\_root.reelMask);
I also attached an FLA file. You just have to replace “ka.jpg” with a local pic of your to see what I’m talking about.
For the .FLA file I put together a simplified version derived from my website. I started with one cell and it worked fine. But,…as soon as I added more cells, it stopped showing them. Then, I took away the mask, and boom there they are! I just cant figure this one out.