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Flash - Playing a Flash Movie Backwards

Free Flash Tutorial

Step Four: Stopping the Auto Play

1. Save the movie.
2. Go to: Movie > Test Movie
3. The car should be going continuously from left to right, with the buttons momentarily disappearing.
4. Close the test window by clicking the second cross on the top right (maybe in a different place).
5. Right click on frame 1, layer Car, select: Actions
6. Select: > Actions > Movie Control > Stop
7. Do the same thing for frame: 45

The Controller Movie Clip

Up until now everything you have done is standard Flash construction. The problem with making a movie play in reverse is that there is no:

playReverse(); Do not use - does not work !

At least as far as I am aware there is no play in reverse command! I don't no why not, it seems an obvious option. Macromedia, are you listening!

There is the following script:

on (release) {
    prevFrame();
}

This is all very well, but it only goes back one frame and stops. You would have to click the back button 44 times to get back to frame 1!

A Controller Movie Clip is the answer. That is a piece of actionscript that when you click the back button repeatedly says prevFrame(); prevFrame(); prevFrame(); etc. Until you get to frame one then the controller says nothing. In other words you need to be able to switch the instruction on and off. If you could not switch it on and off, when you hit the play button, one bit of script would be saying prevFrame(); and another would say play();. This would cause an obvious conflict.

The controller has to be able to be:

• Switched on
• Repeat an instruction innumerable times
• Switched off

To be able to do this, is absolutely crucial to Flash programming. Here we are going to get a movie to play backwards, but this same principle can be used in hundreds of different ways. At the end of this tutorial you will find links to sample files that use the same system of a controller movie clip to give instructions in a variety of different circumstances.