wanting sprite to "carve" through the background

[FastCat]

Hi,

Is it possible for a movie clip to "carve through" a graphic or symbol either on the same layer or on a different one?

As an example:
I have a movie clip of a ball (representing a molecule).
I have a brown background (signifying iodine/gas)
I am able to replicate, animate the molecules and make them bounce off each other using actionscript - now I am wanting to show their path through the iodine.

I would much rather "carve" through the background than leave a trail of hundreds of instances of the molecule.
Can I colour in my path as if using a black paint brush? or is their some better way?

Thanks In advance

FastCat!

[FastCat]

Any thoughts would be truly appreciated....

FastCat!

[satis]

masking might do what you want. You could tween a mask to block out the background as the molecule progresses through the iodine.

[FastCat]

Thanks

All this takes place in just one frame using actionscript for the animation - so tweening is not an option (at least, I don't think....)

Cheers

FastCat!

[FastCat]

I've resigned myself to the fact that one object can not slice its way through the background.

....Unless anyone else knows any different.

Can anyone give me the address of a forum that may give my posting a little more response?

FastCat!

[Guy]

Try this link
http://www.macromedia.com/support/forums/
you should be able to get info there.

hope this helps

[Brent]

Sure, you can create that illusion:

http://www.cbtcafe.com/flash/animatedmasks/animatedmasks.html

[satis]

sorry, I forgot all about this thread. Yea, as Brent said, you can tween a mask. If you only have 1 frame to deal with, just create the tween as its own animation and then drop that in. I don't do much Flash any more, but alot of my later animations ended up 1 frame long in the primary timeline..then I just added in animations as needed.

[.:: 1337_$ki11z]

so you want to show a trail of the molecule moving through the scene, is this molecule moving on a random velocity using the code, going random direction, etc.. requiring you to actionscript a line drawn at runtime along points the molecule is logged at?

or

is this molecule moving through the scene along the same premade path every time.. in which case just doing it with a mask behind the molecule would be the logical plan of attack..

??

i have a feeling your talking about the first if you have no tweens.. in which case, i suggest checking out how to have your script draw line segments behind the moving molecule symbol.. i dont remember the actual actionscript for drawing lines dynamically but i know its in the actionscript 2.0 reference guide

have fun!