Pygame sprite class

We introduced sprites in a previous tutorial. No we will look at them in more detail.

Sprites are objects

You will most likely to be familiar with objects in Python. Common examples of objects in Python are lists and strings.

Typically an object has:

• A type. For example a string has type String, a list has type List. Different types of object behave in different ways.
• A creation method. For example you can use k = [1, 2, 3] to create a list.
• Some data. For example, list can contain a collection of numbers.
• Some functions that belong to that type of object. These functions are called methods. For example, a list has a clear method that deletes all the data from the list, so a.clear() will empty the list a.

Python allows you to create you own object types. You create a new object type by defining a class. For example we can define a class Ball that represents a ball sprite. We can then create Ball objects (that have type Ball) to use in our game.

When you write a game, you will usually have several different types of sprite, and you would normally create a different class for each type.

A sprite class

Here is a simple sprite class:

class Ball(pg.sprite.Sprite):

    def __init__(self, pos):
        super(Ball, self).__init__()
        self.image = pg.image.load(os.path.join('resources', 'ball.png'))
        self.rect = self.image.get_rect()
        self.rect.center = pos

    def update(self):
        pass

This declares a class called Ball. Within the class definition we include the name pg.sprite.Sprite, which is a Sprite class defined by pygame. This just tells Python that the Ball class is a type of Sprite (we say it is a subclass of Sprite). In other words, a Ball is similar to a default sprite, but it has a few special characteristics that we add in our Ball code.

The definition includes two methods, __init__ and update.

You will notice that both methods have self as the first parameter. This parameter represents the actual object itself.

__init__ method

The __init__ method is a special method that most classes include, which tells Python how to create a new object for the class.

The method takes two parameters:

• self, the object being created.
• pos, the initial position of the sprite on the screen. pos should be a list or tuple with two values, x and y that represent the coordinates of the centre of the sprite.

Within the method, we do several things:

• Call super(Ball, self).__init()__. Our Ball class is based on the Sprite class, and this call allows the Sprite class to initialise itself.
• Set self.image. We load the resources/ball.png image file as an image to be used to display the sprite. You will find this file on github with the source code.
• Calls image.get_rect() to get the rectangular region of the image. The rectangle width and height will be set to match the image size. This is stored in self.rect.
• Set rect.centre equal to pos, the position that was passed into the call to __init__. This positions the rectangle with its centre at pos. This controls where the sprite will be drawn.

self here refers to the actual sprite. If you have several ball sprites in your game, each sprite will have its own image and rectangle, and self identifies which one is being changed.

Your code will not call __init__ directly. To create a new Ball, you use code like this:

ball = Ball((100, 200))

When you call Ball(pos), it will automatically call __init__ for the Ball class. The parameter pos, which is (100, 200) in our case, will be passed into __init__. Notice that Ball only takes one parameter. The self parameter in the __init__ call is added by Python.

update method

The update method of Ball is called in in the main loop. It updates the sprite, for example:

• Moving the sprite (by moving self.rect).
• Change the sprite image to create animation.
• Checking for collisions with other sprites.
• Deleting the sprite if it is no longer required.

In the implementation above, the update method does nothing, so the sprite will just sit there without moving.

You can call update like this:

ball.update()

Notice again that in the class definition, update takes a self parameter, but when you call update you don't need to pass a parameter in. Python will automatically add ball as the first parameter.

In fact, on most cases, you won't call update on the sprite directly. If the sprite is part of a group, you can just update the group:

group.update()

Thsi will call update on every sprite in the group.

Sprite class summary

For a sprite class you should do the following:

• Derive the class from pg.sprite.Sprite as shown above.
• Create an image member that holds the image that controls the appearance of the sprite.
• Create a rect member that has the same size as the image, and is positioned wherever you want the sprite to appear.
• Implement an update method.

This is the minimum you must do. Of course, you can also add extra members and methods as you need to.

See also

• Sprite animation in pygame
• Bouncing ball in pygame