I decided to use a separate .fla for this part and to only add it to the main version when it was working properly. For this part to be complete I wanted to be able to address, identify and remove each individual ball separately and for them to automatically expire after a set time period.

I started with simply producing movieclips with the following code:

function mainFunc():void {
var clips;
var newMC:mc = new mc();
addChild(newMC);
newMC.x= Math.random() * 550;
newMC.y= Math.random() * 400;
clips = newMC;
var size:Number = (Math.random() * 20) + 20;
var transp:Number = 1;
clips.height = size;
clips.width = size;
clips.alpha = transp;
}

I then experimented with some code that I had found:

function SelfDelete()
{
rt = new Timer(100, 50);
rt.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, fadeMe);
rt.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER_COMPLETE, deleteMe);
rt.start();
}
function deleteMe(event:TimerEvent)
{
parent.removeChild(this);
}
function fadeMe(event:TimerEvent):void
{
this.alpha -= 0.01;
}

This function applied to every ball at exactly the same time so I needed to give each ball a unique name so I replaced everthing with:

function mainFunc():void {
var clips:Number;
var myBall:mc = new mc();
addChild(myBall).name = "myBall" + i;
myBall.x= Math.random() * 550;
myBall.y= Math.random() * 400;
var size:Number = (Math.random() * 20) + 20;
myBall.height = size;
myBall.width = size;
myBall.alpha = Math.random() + 0.3;
j = i - 5;
a = "myBall" + int(j);

if (i > 4) {
removeChildAt(j);
trace(i);
}
i = i + 1;
}

This seemed to work at first but then began to continuously output errors.

“RangeError: Error #2006: The supplied index is out of bounds.”

I eventually solved this problem by using getChildByName(“name”) when deleting the ball movieclip.

To fade the balls before deleting them I used:

if (i >= 5){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - 5)).alpha = 0.9;}
if (i >= 6){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - 6)).alpha = 0.8;}
if (i >= 7){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - 7)).alpha = 0.7;}
if (i >= 8){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - 8)).alpha = 0.6;}
if (i >= 9){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - 9)).alpha = 0.5;}
i = ++i;

I later converted this into a loop:

for (var z:Number = 5; z <>= z){getChildByName("myBall" + (i - z)).alpha = ((dotsNum - z)/dotsNum) ;}
}
i = ++i;

After this I was ready to merge the two .fla files.