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Description
For a long time I was confused about why some symbols showed animation on the timeline while others didn't and why some symbols were animated in exported flash movies and others weren't. I didn't understand any of it until earlier today when I looked a little deeper into the subject via google search.

I learned that in a movie with a single frame, as the one shown here is, graphics will not be animated. They need to have enough frames on the timeline they're inside of for their own animation to be shown. Movie clips, on the other hand, will show their complete animation. Additionally, if a graphic is placed inside of a movie clip and animated, its own animation will show along with the animation given to it by the movie clip it's inside of (see the moving purple orb thing for an example).

One thing I didn't show here is what happens if you, say, give a movie clip 12 frames of animation while the clip or graphic inside of it has 24 frames. I don't know if the entire animation of the graphic or clip would be shown, or if it would jump back to its first frame upon hitting the end of the 12 frames for the movie clip it was in.

I'm not entirely sure why these animations and lack of animations work as they do. I remember reading something about how with a single frame movie only the first frame of a symbol's animation would be shown. But clearly, that isn't quite right. Only the first frame for graphics is shown. Movie clips, on the other hand are shown in their entirety.

I'll have to keep experimenting and searching and learning more about how flash works.

Description
For a long time I was confused about why some symbols showed animation on the timeline while others didn't and why some symbols were animated in exported flash movies and others weren't. I didn't understand any of it until earlier today when I looked a little deeper into the subject via google search.

I learned that in a movie with a single frame, as the one shown here is, graphics will not be animated. They need to have enough frames on the timeline they're inside of for their own animation to be shown. Movie clips, on the other hand, will show their complete animation. Additionally, if a graphic is placed inside of a movie clip and animated, its own animation will show along with the animation given to it by the movie clip it's inside of (see the moving purple orb thing for an example).

One thing I didn't show here is what happens if you, say, give a movie clip 12 frames of animation while the clip or graphic inside of it has 24 frames. I don't know if the entire animation of the graphic or clip would be shown, or if it would jump back to its first frame upon hitting the end of the 12 frames for the movie clip it was in.

I'm not entirely sure why these animations and lack of animations work as they do. I remember reading something about how with a single frame movie only the first frame of a symbol's animation would be shown. But clearly, that isn't quite right. Only the first frame for graphics is shown. Movie clips, on the other hand are shown in their entirety.

I'll have to keep experimenting and searching and learning more about how flash works.