Re: [pygame] Exact meaning of "sprite"

[Chuck Arellano <scriptedfun@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Terry. To answer your question:

> With an animated sprite -- saying a walking figure
> representing the
> player -- is that one sprite with many surfaces
> representing each frame
> of the walk cycle?

Yes. This is the approach I would take.

> Are sprite groups supposed to
> help with this kind
> of animation or am I supposed to handle all of that
> in the class I
> derive from Sprite?

I would go with the latter approach - handle animation
using a class derived from Sprite.

The way I understand it, a sprite is a python object
that has "image" and "rect" attributes, referring to
the actual image bitmap and the sprite's position on
the screen, respectively. A group is simply a
container designed to handle sprites efficiently,
meaning, to be able to manipulate many sprites at the
same time. By using a group, multiple sprites (with
perhaps very similar roles) can be easily updated
using a single "update" call to the associated group,
and, as Kris already said, you will be easily able to
use the bounding-box collision routines included in
Pygame. In a typical game, you will probably use
multiple groups, with each group containing a single
type of sprite. So one group may contain enemies only,
another may contain shots only, etc.

I think that the Aliens example included in the Pygame
source documentation is a good example of how the
sprite module might play its role.

To accomplish animation, you will probably have to
store the animation frames elsewhere in your sprite
(perhaps in a list stored in an attribute such as
"images"), and just change the image attribute of the
sprite directly as needed to achieve animation. This
is analogous to changing the rect attribute to change
a sprite's position.

In summary:

To change the sprite appearance, change the "image"
attribute.

To change the sprite position, change the "rect"
attribute.


Chuck Arellano - Game Programming Video Tutorials for Beginners at http://www.scriptedfun.com/


 
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