Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Putting a Symbol In Another Symbol
Published on January 18, 2010 by Chad Troftgruben · 116 CommentsIn this short tutorial I show you how to create a symbol within a symbol. I used this method in my previous walking animation tutorial but now explain it in more detail here.
Tags: flash basics
Readers Comments (116)
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[..YouTube..] @CoolDudeClem Make sure you copy the frames BEFORE making it a symbol…i did the same as you lol.
[..YouTube..] “You cannot place a symbol inside itself”, NOW WTF am I doing wrong?
[..YouTube..] why do we make the symbol twice though?
[..YouTube..] I accidentally made my character a symbol first. How do I undo this so I can get all of my layers back?
[..YouTube..] @hugegummybear You click on it with the selection tool and hit F7, I THINK.
[..YouTube..] how do you delete a symbol
[..YouTube..] Wait-is the character you start with a symbol, or is it just a drawing? THIS IS SO CONFUSING?
[..YouTube..] 1:33 when i hit f8 its not working , can anyone help me pls ?
[..YouTube..] 1:33 when i hit f8 its not working , can anyone help me pls ?
[..YouTube..] ehm, wtf.. I now have 2 dudes.
[..YouTube..] It won’t let me copy the layers :\
[..YouTube..] SYMBCEPTION
[..YouTube..] i cant copy all the frames
just one by one so it wont work
[..YouTube..] a symbol in a symbol…INCEPTIO
[..YouTube..] do we need this for walking? cuz i have cs5 and when i made it into a symbol it took my eyes on my character off
[..YouTube..] I cant copy the frames
[..YouTube..] @VvConorvV yeah well life is about the thirst for knowledge…so thanks for sharing..:)
[..YouTube..] Actually……most good animators I’ve seen online own a MAC. Funny, I used to think I was STUCK with my PC.
[..YouTube..] Actually……most good animators I’ve seen online own a MAC. Funny, I used to think I was STUCK with my PC.
[..YouTube..] @calibratestudios get a mouse so you can right click
[..YouTube..] @VvConorvV Haha you suck ’cause you have a mac. Get a PC.
[..YouTube..] @theReek1992 Not just begginers ive been doing flash 3 years and this is new to me
[..YouTube..] what else could you put instead of f8, because on a mac f8 triggers the play button in itunes. please reply
[..YouTube..] I follow all your step in all of your tutorial,Now i highlight my character hit F8 name it walking 1, then i double click into that symbol hit F8 name it walking 2, do everything that i should do in walking 1 and 2, the problem is, when i click scene 1, I’ve the head lawyer, neck, every parts of the body on scene one, but in your tutorial i dont see those body parts, i only see lawyer there, please tell what to do
[..YouTube..] dude you are a GOD to flash beginners!!
[..YouTube..] I’m doing the symbol within the symbol but whenever i put the frames in the guy disappears help please
[..YouTube..] what about for CS5?
[..YouTube..] A symbol in a symbol? WE NEED TO GO DEEPER.INCEPTION
[..YouTube..] F8 won’t work and I’m using a mac like you are advice?
[..YouTube..] CYMBCEPTION
[..YouTube..] @genie145 I get the same response. Did you ever get a solution to this? If so, could you please let me know?Thx.
[..YouTube..] I have made my character like in this tutorial. what about when I want the character symbol to change after a while (say in frame 40)? for example I want my character walk across the stage until it dissapears, then wear a hat for example and walk back (has to be somehow connected to the head symbol so it moves the same way and would be on top of the ears symbol instead of below etc..) just wondering if you have any advice since Im new to this…
[..YouTube..] @NiboJibble Make sure you did not group anything. If you have those purple squares when you select your character press ctrl alt g or ungroup. Your Welcome. Make sure you group the arms and hands.
[..YouTube..] @NiboJibble Make sure you did not group anything. If you have those purple squares when you select your character press ctrl alt g or ungroup. Your Welcome
[..YouTube..] When I converted it into a symbol all of my layers messed up. Any advice.
[..YouTube..] Soo confused
[..YouTube..] Yo dawg i hear you like symbols
[..YouTube..] @thebloddyzorrow f8.
[..YouTube..] Hey, dude im stuck with the Symbols, you see I didn’t know to merg the layers together. And now i cannot do it cuss the Symbols, won’t let me select it back to normal.
Can you please help me?P.S the symbols selects the whole Cartoon.
[..YouTube..] I’m not getting this to work in Flash CS5. Whenever I paste the keyframes into layer 1 my character just disappears. Any help?
[..YouTube..] What is a symbol into another symbol? Anyone tell me please im just new, trying to learn this
[..YouTube..] i dont think this works on CS5.5 ….
[..YouTube..] FH? Hit FH?
[..YouTube..] how do you connect two symbols? for instance, the upper arm and the lower arm. if you move the upper arm from the shoulder they lower arm doesn’t move with it. how do you connect them?
[..YouTube..] We need to go deeper.
[..YouTube..] Whenever I modify a cartoon character into a symbol… The Characters layers all mix up and i can’t fix it… PLEASE HELP
[..YouTube..] Thanks! Just elarned to make a character. Looks too much like yours but I was following the tut. Imma change it now
.
[..YouTube..] @elanetto THANKS
[..YouTube..] Thank you so much for all your videos!!
[..YouTube..] Thank you.
[..YouTube..] @Sccr1218 Did you follow the vid? Copy the layers before convert. Then he converts into a symbol where all the layers merge to one, and then converts to symbol again, and pastes the copied frames from before.
[..YouTube..] OMG THATS A HUGE TUMOR
[..YouTube..] when i convert to symbol all my layers get put into one and then i cant do anything with it
Why are you not responding to the peoples questions? Please help some of us who are stuck. I cannot copy all frames at once, only one frame get selected when i right click, and if i select all it doesnt give the “copy frames” option. I have spent a lot of time following your tutorial and only now i get stuck.Helllllllllllllllpppppppppppppp
[..YouTube..] ø„¸¸„ø¤º°¨¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸ HBK ¸„ø¤º°¨copy nd paste t 9 vids and the press f5 2 times¸„ø¤º°¨ “°º¤ø„¸look at ur backgroung¸„ø¤º°¨¸„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø„¸¨°º¤ø
[..YouTube..] rargh now i have heads symbol and characters symbol and that all is pupils layer zomg!!!! how do i get back???
[..YouTube..] Yo dawg, he heard you liek symbols so we put symbol in your symbol, so you can animate while you animate.
[..YouTube..] When I go to paste the frames, it tells me I can’t put a symbol within a symbol!
[..YouTube..] A symbol within a symbol? That’s like Inception
[..YouTube..] i didnt understand what you say in 1:03-1:05
[..YouTube..] Do you use a stylus to make the drawings cause that seems easier to use the a mouse sometimes
[..YouTube..] wow dudee .. you’ve helped me soo much ! your tutorials are awsome !!!
[..YouTube..] wtf. it does’nt work at all.. ehh..
[..YouTube..] flash player keeps telling me that i can’t put a symbol within a symbol
[..YouTube..] Chubby young ladies in the offing romance naneedj.info
[..YouTube..] sir when i insert the symbol like walking 1 what about the first scene named scene 1 all the layers are present there and i am confused wat to do pls help and also tell how to delete a symbol thanks plss
[..YouTube..] ITS INCEOTION!!!!but with adobe flash :3
[..YouTube..] i was confused because i was creating a new symbol instead of convert …
[..YouTube..] Don’t click “Insert –> New Symbol” instead, click “Modify –> Convert to Symbol”Hope that helps
[..YouTube..] its convert, not create..
[..YouTube..]
I hate you, you are a liar, you teach me how to do a character piece by piece, and now i can no use this for nothing. i can add a bone,
[..YouTube..] Never mind, I hitted ctrl – f8. xD
[..YouTube..] @ThePatrickBurger I have the same problem.Can someone please help me? When I hit ok @ the symbol my animation dissapears. Please help me! thanks in advance
are you canadian?
you are awesome
[..YouTube..] @BeatovenzTV it’s just getting you inside the symbol automatically, easily click back at the ‘scene’ button up there or double click the stage. hope that helped.
[..YouTube..] when i create a symbol everything gets deleted whats that mean.
[..YouTube..] omg this isnt working the way you do it at all. if i save it as a symbol all moving parts dissapear. if i select all layers it doesnt let me copy frames,WTF!!
[..YouTube..] @thebuilderddd And even more typing a useless commentAnd thx to you I have as well…
[..YouTube..] I have justed wasted 3 minutes of my life.
[..YouTube..] plzz tell me whenever i click paste frames all the rest of my buddy gets deleted and only one part is there plzz help me
[..YouTube..] your awesome man you make things very easy to understand the books and some of these other online tutors are very pretentious and self important using words that are more vague than anything else but make them sound intelligent There’s a saying (paraphrasing) If you can’t put what your saying into laymens terms you prolly don’t fully understand it yourself
[..YouTube..] oh my gawd!! that was too easy thank you so much for adding this.. its the litle things uknow. Im folloing your tutorials for my HW and I was so lost on this part. Thank you so much!
[..YouTube..] This helped so much in getting an organized workflow. Thank you so much!
[..YouTube..] hey i wus just wondring.. how do u less the smoothing of the pecil tool, when i drag it sidesways it wont lessen
[..YouTube..] @BlackSkyPrince this happened to me with the body, try deleting the arm the wont highlight, it may have duplicated somehow
[..YouTube..] @davidjjdj me too!
[..YouTube..] Is is only me but did i miss something? becouse when he high lighted his character rha arm was only in a square but i can only high light the hole charater =/ plzzzz help me D:
[..YouTube..] @halofannatic o k thanx
[..YouTube..] @woowoo14598 im guessing camtasia or fraps
[..YouTube..] @davidjjdj When u click convert to symbol,there should be a registration column showing 9 boxes. Change it to the second one.then it should work.
[..YouTube..] which recorder do u use?
[..YouTube..] when i paste it it says you cannot place a symbol inside itself
[..YouTube..] @Karoskai This is ment for the walking animation tutorial, sorry for putting it in here.
[..YouTube..] It doesn’t work for me, when you said highlight all of the frames, I do, then I right-click and click copy, Then it just copies that one frame that I right clicked, they all don’t copy, just the one, And whenever I copy it, it just messes up the picture in the first place. Please respond, this is important to me, I need to learn how to do this.
[..YouTube..] i downloaded an .fla from the net.i opened the library of that fla and saw many symbols… i noticed when i right-clicked symbol 1, i see a play button.then i clicked the play button when i right clicked..after i clicked the play button, the whole animation played..then i right clicked on 1 of the symbols then clicked edit.i changed the appearance of that symbol..then when i went back to symbol and right clicked symbol 1, i clicked play again.but it doesnt play the whole animation..help!! thanks
[..YouTube..] @Evaahya because the first symbol says where it goes and the second symbol says what it does in that motion. EX ( symbol one moves the character across the screen, Symbol two makes him do the running motion
[..YouTube..] I do exactly what you do, but when my character pops up it messes up my stage. When I test the video, the stage doesn’t align with the test video. Can you tell me why it does this and how i can fix it?
[..YouTube..] Thanx man, i LOVE it!
Respect!
[..YouTube..] Can you explain why u have to make a symbol within a symbol?
[..YouTube..] Thanks man That really helped
[..YouTube..] Problem. What if I’ve already animated everything? I can’t copy all the frames and junk then…Ugh. ANGER >:O
[..YouTube..] thank you so much
[..YouTube..] it says ‘you cannot place a symbol inside of itself’ when i paste the frames. what am i doing wrong?
[..YouTube..] thank s guy !!!sao paulo brasil
[..YouTube..] when i trying to paste layers he show me this message “You cannot place a symbol inside itself” do you know why?
[..YouTube..] Thank you SO MUCH! i watched your video on how to make the cartoon character, and when i wanted to watch the walking vid, you told to make a symbol of it, and i didnt exacly understand how to do it.. So.. XD U SAVED ME FROM WASTING 37 minutes of my LIFE :]
[..YouTube..] My character disappears when I make it a symbol. Can someone tell me why?
[..YouTube..] thanks!
[..YouTube..] Hollywoodpedo1 you can create a symbol by pushing F8 or by going Modify -> Convert to Symbol. Both of them is exactly the same.
[..YouTube..] Waaait, did you say F+H or F8? Im using a mac so if i press F8 its gonna play my iTunes or spotify. So how I do since you’re on a mac too xD
[..YouTube..] How do make the character stop walking for a brief moment
[..YouTube..] Thanks so much! I only just started using Flash so this has taught me so much
[..YouTube..] omg i made him a symbol, now all the body parts are on the arm layer, what did i do wrong?
[..YouTube..] Very nice. Thanks for this!!
[..YouTube..] when i select the character the frames don’t highlight can you please help me?