Tutorial:Graphics and movie clips
From Anipedia
The difference between movie clips and graphics is that a movie clip hosts it's own nested timeline within the main timeline that can itself host actionscript, animations, and more nested movieclips; A graphic symbol can too host a nested timeline, but only with animations and symbols, however unlike the movieclip, when the timeline is scrubbed or is played played with the enter key the animation inside a graphic symbol will also be played along with the movie, a trait which movieclips, due to their nesting of actionscript, cannot share, because of the possibility that a script affects the way the movieclip acts.
A movieclip will act independently of the main timeline and is for all intents and purposes an entirely different movie that can be accessed from the main one, meaning that it will loop back to the beginning once it reaches the end of it's nest animation(s). Not to mention that a graphical filter (introduced in Flash 8) can be applied to a movieclip(s). A graphic symbol shares none of those traits.
Movieclips are useful for small repeating animations such as fire, because it saves the animator from having to manually copy the frames for a short looping animation until the loop ceases. It is also useful because the looping animations can easily be moved about the stage. Movieclips are especially useful for game design because they are capable of hosting player and enemy animations within themselves and hosting the code required for the usage of both player and enemy movieclips within themselves.
A graphic symbol would be favorable for creating a layered animated clip that wouldn't repeat itself without outside intervention. They are generally useless except as a medium for simple animation. They are completely useless in game design due to their lack of interactivity and inability to host or be affected by code.
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[edit] Movie Clips and Graphics
When you covert a drawing in to a symbol, you are given 3 options, Movie Clip, Button, and Graphic. We already know what a button does, but what about the other two?
[edit] Animation on the Inside
In both movie clips and graphics, they can be edited as a sequence of events outside of the scene they are present in. This allows the animator to add frames and layers inside the object, which flow partially independant of the movies progress.
The events inside the movie clip/graphic can be affected in the movie by the use of an unbroken motion tween. For example, Movie clip/graphic contains a man walking, and the progression of the outlying motion tween rotates the object, the final product would have the walking and rotating.
[edit] Similarities and Differences
When you make a movie clip and graphic, they look like the same thing. You can both swap a symbol with them and edit them to add layers within the symbol. However...
[edit] Movie Clip
Unlike graphics, you can add actionscript on movie clips, primarily used for games. But the biggest difference is filters, if you have Flash 8 or CS3 you will be able to use them.
[edit] Graphics
The biggest advantage to using a graphic is being able to see an animation of the graphic on the main timeline. If you have a movie clip with an animation and go to the main timeline, you will not be able to see the movie clip animation while playing the main timeline. (You'll be able to see it when exporting the movie) But with a graphic you can.
As you move down the timeline you are able to see the animation within the graphic on the main timeline.
