Animation

By rapidly changing the painting (frames) on the graphics window, we can make an animation.

Time Control

Because the computer can draw very fast, we must let it to wait some time between two frames.

Note: Functions used in this section won’t work in the headless mode.

In easygraphics, we can use delay() to pause the program from the specified milliseconds.

Control the FPS

Because the actual drawing time can be different each time drawing, a better way to control the speed is by using the delay_fps() function.

FPS is the abbreviation of “frames per second”.delay_fps() will calculate each frame’s drawing time, and wait to make each frame displays evenly.

Render Mode

There are two render mode in EasyGraphics:

1. RenderMode.AUTO: All drawings on the graphics window will show immediately. This is the default mode, and is for normal drawing.
2. RenderMode.Manual: Drawings will not show on the graphics window. Only time control, keyboard or mouse functions like pause()/delay()/delay_fps()/get_mouse_msg() will update the graphics window. This mode can speed up the animation frames drawing.

It’s a good practice to set the render mode to manual when your want to show an animation.

You can use set_render_mode() to set the render mode.

Note: If you are not drawing on the graphics window, this render mode has no effect.

Background

Ofter we need to make an object move in a background. If the background is complicated, it’s not a good idea to recreate the background in each frame.

A common solution is to draw background in one image , and the moving object in another transparent image. The final result is made by merging the two images.

The following program draws a moving bus on the road (background).Note the use of the is_run() function.

from easygraphics import *

def main():
    init_graph(800, 600)
    set_render_mode(RenderMode.RENDER_MANUAL)

    background = create_image(800, 600)
    set_target(background)
    set_background_color(Color.LIGHT_YELLOW)
    set_fill_color(Color.RED)
    draw_circle(150, 150, 50)
    set_fill_color(Color.DARK_BLUE)
    draw_rect(0, 400, 800, 600)

    car = create_image(162, 150)
    set_target(car)
    set_composition_mode(CompositionMode.SOURCE)
    set_background_color(Color.TRANSPARENT)
    set_fill_color("white")
    draw_polygon(0, 0, 0, 60, 160, 60, 160, 40, 125, 20, 110, 0)
    set_fill_color("darkgray")
    draw_circle(35, 60, 20)
    draw_circle(120, 60, 20)
    set_fill_color("transparent")
    draw_rect(10, 10, 40, 25)
    draw_rect(50, 10, 80, 25)

    set_target()
    x = 0
    while is_run():
        x = (x + 2) % 750
        draw_image(0, 0, background)
        draw_image(x, 350, car)
        delay_fps(100)

    background.close()
    car.close()
    close_graph()

easy_run(main)

Skipping Frames

Sometimes a drawing can be complicated and slow, and we can’t finish a frame drawing in the specified frame time. This will create lags in the animation.

The delay_jfps() can skip some frames ( if a frame is using too much time, the successive frames will be skipped to keep up with the specified fps).

The following example shows how to use delay_jfps() to control time. Note that we use sleep() to simulate a long-time drawing operation.

from easygraphics import *
import time

def main():
    init_graph(640, 480)
    set_color(Color.BLUE)
    set_fill_color(Color.GREEN)
    set_render_mode(RenderMode.RENDER_MANUAL)

    x = 0
    while is_run():
        x = (x + 1) % 440
        if delay_jfps(60, 0):
            clear_device()
            draw_ellipse(x + 100, 200, 100, 100)
            time.sleep(0.5)
    close_graph()
easy_run(main)