Actionscript 3 Code access to timeline masks...?

[barliesque]

Is it possible to use AS3 code to access information about masks that were set up on the timeline in the Flash IDE?

I have two shapes on the time line: A circle and a square. The square is on a layer that masks the circle, so that the end result is a quarter-circle. When examining the display list, two unnamed instances are there--both are shapes. The mask property of both is set to null...!!!

So presumably, the mask property is not being set because the mask was set up in the Flash IDE, rather than dynamically through code. Is there some way to access any useful information about this scenario from code???

[barliesque]

Ugh! The idea wasn't to re-code everything that's been set up with the Flash IDE... but that seems to be the only way to approach masking from AS3. What's worse, it turns out that any given mask can only be assigned to a single object---unlike what's possible within the Flash IDE timeline. So it becomes all the more troublesome to re-create a set of masked objects in code.

I've just written an article dealing with this issue on my blog, and included some code that works around problems of determining a MovieClip's area of visibility when the MovieClip includes masks.

So if anybody else comes across this post because they've had this kind of problem, have a look at this.

[Onsitus]

Nice article...thanks for sharing!

[barliesque]

Thank you. I hope it proves helpful.