Billy T.

This user is yet to take control of their account and provide a biography. If you are the author of this article, please contact us via support AT actionscript DOT org.

View all articles by Billy T.

OK now lets control our clip from a button. Remove all the actions on our clip and give it an instance name of "ball". Draw a rectangle on the stage and convert it to a button. Give your button this action - 

on (release) {
        _root.ball._xscale = random(500);
        _root.ball._yscale = random(500);
        _root.ball._x = random(500);
        _root.ball._y = random(400);
        _root.ball._alpha = random(100);
}

Test your movie and click on the button a few times. OK now lets make the clip scroll to different positions.

Give your ball clip this action -

onClipEvent (load) {
        //this sets the initial target x position for our clip
        _root.targX = 50;
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
        //this variable stores the current x position of the clip
        cX = this._x;
        //this variable stores the distance between the clips current x position
        //and where we want it to go
        //I am setting the targX variable in the root so that it is easy to target with our button
        difX = cX-_root.targX;
        //this moves the clip 1/5 of the distance every frame.
        //Because the difference between the clips current location and its destination
        //will get smaller each frame, so will the amount the clip travels each frame.
        //This is what makes the clip appear as though it "eases into" it's final destination
        setProperty(this, _x, cX-(difX/5));
        //check the flash manual to learn more about the setProperty action
}

and your button this action -

on (release) {
        //this sets the targX variable to a random number between 0 and 500
        _root.targX = random(500);
}

Test your movie and click the button a few times. Pretty cool huh? You can use this formula on the movieclip to get some great effects. Try (without cheating) adapting it to effect the clips x and y scale. You should end up with something like this on the clip -

onClipEvent (load) {
        _root.targXscale = 50;
        _root.targYscale = 200;
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
        cXscale = this._xscale;
        cYscale = this._yscale;
        difXscale = cXscale-_root.targXscale;
        difYscale = cYscale-_root.targYscale;
        setProperty(this, _xscale, cXscale-(difXscale/5));
        setProperty(this, _yscale, cYscale-(difYscale/5));
}

and this on the button -

on (release) {
        _root.targXscale = random(500);
        _root.targYscale = random(500);
}

Test your movie. You will notice that even if you click the button quickly the scaling of the clip never jumps - imagine trying to do that will tweened animation!

OK that's it. Have fun - experiment with it.

You can download the source file for this tute here (not that you will need it...)

cheers