You’re welcome!

To Kristi …

Please ignore my previous question, in going back through the post above (it’s very long), I’ve found a comment about putting code on frame 2 instead of 1, and this works!

Hey, glad you found a solution! Good deal!

To david …

im making a brick break game and i want to spice it up a bit. i want it so when the ball hits a brick, it will go to a random frame in that ball mc

Sorry for the delayed reply! I think I understand what you’re asking. Assuming your code does work, as shown, then the randomized part is the only thing that needs to change — and it’ll replace the number 2 inside your gotoAndStop().

First, here’s what you had:

onClipEvent(enterFrame) {
  if ((this.hitTest(_root.ball))) {
    _root.ball.yspeed = -_root.ball.yspeed;
    _root.ball.gotoAndStop(2);
    this.play();
  }
}

I suspect you don’t really need the _root references in there, but because I don’t have your file to test with, I’m going to go ahead and keep using it. For the randomized part, you’ll want to check how many frames are inside ball (that’s the MovieClip._totalframes property), then use that number to generate a random number within the correct range.

onClipEvent(enterFrame) {
  if ((this.hitTest(_root.ball))) {
    _root.ball.yspeed = -_root.ball.yspeed;
    _root.ball.gotoAndStop(
      Math.ceil(Math.random() * _root.ball._totalframes)
    );
    this.play();
  }
}

See the difference? Let me know if that works for you (and here’s hoping this answer isn’t too late to help you).

To Lenny …

Glad to help!

To Will …

I’m not exactly sure I understand your question, I’m afraid. I think the answer is yes, but I should clarify a few things. First, if you’re sending the playhead to a frame number, you don’t need an array. You can just use plain numbers, as I showed in my reply to david (just prior to my reply to Lenny in this block of replies).

When you say “triggers another movie,” my hunch is that you mean another movie clip, and if that’s so, then all you need to do is reference that movie clip’s instance name to access how many frames it has. In that same sentence, though, you said “which only goes to the next label,” so you might need an array after all (simply because the array is capable of holding a list of strings, such as frame labels).

That leads to my second clarification, which is that, generally speaking, you can always target whatever movie clip you like — be that the main timeline or a symbol — by using a valid reference to that movie clip. In the case of the main timeline, you can use this if the code is scoped to that timeline (in other words, if the code appears in a keyframe of that timeline). If the code is elsewhere, you can use _parent to “reach back” from whatever nested timeline you’re in. You can also use _root, as long as you understand what _root really means. In the case of movie clip symbols, you use their instance names.

Great Articles, i have a question on arrays of frame numbers. Can i put an array of frame numbers, that are from one movie timeline on the stage, that triggers another movie to play (which only goes to the next label) each time it reaches one of the frame numbers in the array.

Thanks

onClipEvent(enterFrame) {
if ((this.hitTest(_root.ball))) {
_root.ball.yspeed = -_root.ball.yspeed;
_root.ball.gotoAndStop(2);
this.play();
}
}

on frame two is a red ball, when i try to make it go to a random frame, it doesnt work, however, i got it to go to the second ball frame help! if you need it explained bettter please ask

I’ve got a 205 frame anim with 16 frame labels, and I need the animation to run from a random starting label, then just play normally, and when at end frame loop back to start (or frame 2 so that it doesn’t trigger random label action).
I’ve tried the following from post above:

var labels:Array = new Array(”Frame1″, “Frame2″, “Frame3″, “Frame4″, “Frame5″, “Frame6″, “Frame7″, “Frame8″, “Frame9″, “Frame10″, “Frame11″, “Frame12″, “Frame13″, “Frame14″, “Frame15″, “Frame16″);
var index:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * labels.length);
this.gotoAndPlay(labels[index]);

but it doesn’t seam to work. On testing 23 times, the first 19 started on frame 1, then label 3, then frame 1, then label 2. Not very random. My action script is on frame 1, and was copy pasted from this post. I’m running CS3 ?? Any thoughts? I’d be very grateful for your assistance.

Cheers
Kristi

If you’re testing from within Flash, the loading aspect shouldn’t be an issue, so I’m still a bit puzzled. Still, I’m glad that you feel more comfortable about the numeric version.

For sake of troubleshooting, I suggest you copy/paste this same (or similar) code into a brand new FLA with very little content — perhaps a few simple shapes — and see if you run into the same limitation (you shouldn’t). That may help you pinpoint what’s going on in your actual content FLA.

Thanks for your help. BTW, I like the new code better. It just feels right.

Thanks,
Gary

when i click to go back to “homepage” (for example) the whole thing turns a mess… jumping from one frame to another…….

it’s just like if the random mc code was still workin outside the mc!!!

Apologies for the late reply!

Off the top of my head, I’m afraid I’m not sure what might be causing this — actually, not sure I can even envision it. The only thing that should be telling the movie clip to jump anywhere are your series of gotoAndPlay() calls, and if you’re preceding that with the this keyword (and assuming those statements are inside the keyframes of the movie clip in question), then only that movie clip should be jumping around.

But maybe that’s just it? Is that movie clip continuing to play, even when you send the main timeline elsewhere? If so, you can give that movie clip an instance name and invoke MovieClip.stop() on it … or hide it by setting its MovieClip._visible property to false. Do any of these suggestions make sense? I might be missing the mark completely, so let me know if I can re-phrase to try to suggest a few other avenues.

To Gary …

First off, I’m totally new to AS and don’t know how to label a frame

You’ll be pleased to hear it’s super easy. I generally create a Timeline layer just for labels, same as for ActionScript. Add a keyframe to whatever frame you want labeled, then click that frame to select it. Look at the Property inspector, and you’ll see right where you can specify your label.

t seems that if you just use the frame number, it works just as well

Yes. The MovieClip.gotoAndPlay() method accepts either a number (for frames) or a string (for labels).

but if I add a frame number higher than 231, it just goes to frame 231 every time and won’t go any higher. It may still go to 6, 66, 126, or 186, but won’t go higher than 231. Is this because I really need to actually label the frames?

It shouldn’t matter, but the fact that it keeps getting stuck on 231 for you makes me wonder if your timeline has more than 231 frames. If it doesn’t, then 231 is the end of the line. If you choose to use frame numbers rather than labels, you should rewrite the getRandomLabel() function like this:

function getRandomFrame():Number {
  var labels:Array = new Array(6, 66, 126, 186);
  var index:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * labels.length);
  return labels[index];
}

… not that it makes any difference what the function is called, but at least this way you’re actually returning numbers, rather than strings (notice the :Number datatype on the function’s return value, and the omitted quotation marks on the array’s items).

You should be able to put any numbers in there you please, as long as the timeline that contains this code has that many frames. If you have especially heavy assets in that particular timeline, it might be that Flash Player is still loading those frames, while gotoAndPlay() makes the attempt to jump to a frame that doesn’t exist … yet.

Might that be it?