It's been about three years since I addressed this topic in the original duplicate movie clips tutorial: //www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/duplicate.htm I guess three years is a long time when it comes to the internet, so it's about time that I revisit this tutorial. There are some changes in how the duplicateMovieClip works since my earlier tutorial, so I hope to cover those changes in this tutorial along with covering the basics of duplicating movie clips in Flash.

For an example of what you will create, click on the hollow circle in the following animation:

[ click on the hollow circle to generate duplicate circles ]

Code Explanation
As always, here is an explanation of what the code does:

dupMovie = function () {

for (i=0; i<100; i++) {

circle.duplicateMovieClip("circle"+i, i, {_x:Math.random()*300, _y:Math.random()*200, _alpha:Math.random()*50});

with (eval("circle"+i)) {

_xscale = _yscale=Math.random()*300;

}

}

};

dupMovie();

I first create a new function called dupMovie that contains all of our code. While you do not have to create a new function to execute the code for our trivial animation, it is easy to manage or re-run code when it is contained in its own little function.

Notice that I make a call to our dupMovie function by writing dupMovie();. Simply declaring a function does not necessarily mean the code in the function is executed. Since this function does not have any event handlers attached to it, I have to manually make a call in order to execute any code contained within it.

for (i=0; i<100; i++) {

circle.duplicateMovieClip("circle"+i, i, {_x:Math.random()*300, _y:Math.random()*200, _alpha:Math.random()*50});

with (eval("circle"+i)) {

_xscale = _yscale=Math.random()*300;

}

}

I create a simple for loop in the above section of code. I initialize a variable i, and I continue executing any code contained until the value of i reaches 99 (less than 100).

circle.duplicateMovieClip("circle"+i, i, {_x:Math.random()*300, _y:Math.random()*200, _alpha:Math.random()*50});

This is the line that contains our duplicateMovieClip code! The format for using the duplicate movie clip function is:

   mc.duplicateMovieClip(newName, depth, {parameters});

In the above format, mc is the name of the movie clip you will be duplicating, newName is the new name of your duplicated movie clip, and depth is the depth of your newly duplicated movie clip. The parameters section allows you to easily change movie properties of your new duplicated movie clip from within the duplicateMovie function itself.

In our code, circle is the movie clip we are duplicating. Each newly duplicated movie clip will follow the format: "circle"+i. In other words, your movie clips will be called circle0, circle1, circle2, etc. up until the final value of i as determined by our for loop.

For the depth, I simply use the value i. For more complicated movies, you would use something that takes into account the depth of other objects on your stage by using getNextHighestDepth().

The most exciting feature is the ability to adjust the properties for duplicated movie clips! For example, in my above code, I adjust the x position, y position, and alpha:

Note

Specifying the parameters for your duplicated movie clip is optional. You can get away with just specifying the new movie clip name and the depth:

   mc.duplicateMovieClip(newName, depth)
 

I have provided a source file for you to look at: