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Sprites overview

A sprite is an object that controls when, where, and how cast members appear in a movie. Multiple sprites can use the same cast member. You can also switch the cast member assigned to a sprite as the movie plays. You use the Stage to control where a sprite appears and you use the Score to control when it appears in your movie.

Sprites display on the Stage layered according to the channel in which they're in the Score. Sprites in higher-numbered channels appear in front of sprites in lower-numbered channels. A movie can include up to 1000 sprite channels. Use the Movie tab of the Property Inspector to control the number of channels. See Setting Stage and movie properties.

Sprite properties include the sprite's size and location, the cast member assigned to the sprite, and the frames in which the sprite occurs. Different properties can alter the appearance of a sprite. You can rotate, skew, flip, and change the color of sprites without affecting cast members. You can change sprite properties with the Property Inspector or Lingo.

In Lingo, some properties are available only for certain types of sprites. Such properties typically are characteristics related to the specific sprite type. For example, Lingo has several digital video properties that determine the contents of tracks in digital video sprites.

To control the way a sprite's colors appear on the Stage, you use sprite inks. By selecting Background Transparent ink in the Property Inspector, for example, you turn all white pixels transparent and remove the white border (the bounding rectangle) around bitmap images (assuming the sprite is over a white background). Other inks provide more complex and interesting effects such as reversed colors or colors that change in different ways depending on the background color.