Rotating drop shadow

Question

okay, so i have a ring made up of 10 balls - sort of like a
clock - and i've made them spin one way, then in the other
direction. i want to create a realistic drop shadow that obv
animates along with the ring, but when i skew the shadow and then
animate it to rotate, the whole shape moves in a funky way. instead
of looking like the cast shadows of the individual balls in the
ring, it looks more like a second, skewed clog doing it's own
thang. i've tried motion tweening first, then skewing, and vice
versa - with the same results. i'm a newb to flash, and my luck
with motion guides has not been good. when i try breaking up the
balls into 10 individual layers and making them rotate around a
circular path, i get some error message saying i can't animate
ungrouped or multiple symbol layers or something weird like that.
i've watched a couple motion guide tutorials, but i still can't
apply it to the project i'm working on now. anyone have a spare 5
mins to tell me how to do this? i will love you forever.

Answer 1

I can't resist the offer of love forever, so here goes:
You might try this: turn your animating ball ring into a
single movie clip, by copying all layers and then pasting them into
a new blank movie clip. Then, on a blank stage, place one instance
of that movie clip.
Now here's the tricky part: You must move the movie clip's
center point to the very bottom of the clip. Not the bottom of the
individual ball, but the lowest point that the ball goes to in its
rotation. Think of it as the point where your rotating ring touches
the ground. Click on the Free Transform tool and move that little
white circle down to the bottom.
Now copy that movie clip and paste it in place (aligned with
the first one), but on a new, lower, layer.
Now you can skew the bottom movie clip...as long as that
center point (which you moved to the bottom) does not move. Apply a
tint to it, or an alpha value (Color field in the Properties
panel). If you have Flash 8, you can also apply a Blur filter.
I just tried all this myself, based on your description. It
works.