Animation within an animation

[queiry]

I'm relatively new to Flash (basically teaching myself using the Help menu). I want to make a helicopter move across the screen, while the rotors are spinning.

So I created the animation to make the rotors look like they are spinning, which takes 3 keyframes to go through one cycle.

My questions:
- How do I make those 3 keyframes loop?
- How can I use this looping animation of the helicopter, and make it move across the screen?

[kestrel]

you can use motion tweening to make it move across the screen
a good way to learn to animate, is to go to http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/flashtutorials.html
they have alot (15) of tutorials that are very helpful
look there and watch all the animations

[queiry]

Thanks for the link. I'll check out the tutorials.

I am aware of how to tween. But I haven't mastered how to have an animation nested in another one.

- I designed the helicopter component, with rotating blades.
- I can design the helicopter moving (simply using tweening).
- But I'm missing the step in between.

I've been able to save the stationary helicopter (with rotating blades) to a movie clip in my Library. But then how do I use it in my main timeline and have it loop constantly (I understand looping is the default), while allowing me to move it in the main animation?

I have dragged the helicopter movie clip to the main timeline, on its own layer. But when I preview the clip, it doesn't rotate.

[Coda]

wellllll, to me it seems you need to convert those frames (the spinning blades) into a movie clip. i dont have a copy of flash in front of me so im going by vague memory. either right click or look in the tool bar for a movie clip option, then seeing as u have already animated the blades u can copy them(ctrl-c) and paste(ctrl-v) them into the movie clip timeline. returning to your main timeline shouyld allow you to tween the blades along with the rest of the helicopter resulting in continuing spinning blades. something like that anyways. i highly recommend that you visit www.newgrounds.com and check out the forums as there are flash users who are far more experienced than myself and will have no trouble in explaining how this is done and many other things. it proved invaluable to me. good luck.