Loop function to play random movieclip

Question

I'm using Adobe Animate to create a simple HTML5 Canvas animation that has stars animating randomly in the background. I have 10 stars named star1 - star10 as I want to only have 10 of them playing in specific places. I've been trying to create a function that will loop, pick a random number from 1-10 then play that movieclip.

This is my current code:

setInterval(function(){
    var myNum = Math.round(Math.random() * 10) + 1;
    thisMc = this["star" + myNum];
    thisMc.play();
}, 800);

The function is looping and is picking a random number between 1-10, but I just can't get it to play the movieclip. When I use this["star" + myNum]; it comes back as unidentified, but if I use ["star" + myNum]; then it comes back as ["star1"]. I'm not sure how to get the code to compile the actual movieclip name and to play it.

Answer 1

You have to save the context to another object outside the setInterval() function, and use that inside the function.

let ctx = this;
setInterval(function(){
    var myNum = Math.round(Math.random() * 10) + 1;
    thisMc = ctx["star" + myNum];
    thisMc.play();
}, 800);

This should work.