Unit 2 Lab 2: Graphics and Animation, Activity 1

Sprite Costumes and Stage Backgrounds

Need to go back through entire course and change "BJCMS" prefix to "Sparks" (also check for other references to middle school). --MF, 1/11/23
Consider updating the gifffer from https://github.com/krasimir/gifffer
Pamela's project
See also Greeting card (one sprite only; ditch border; focus on primitive blocks; centering as ITIT)
Bug Dance Animation
Current Row of Houses TIF and solution

In this activity, you will learn about sprites (characters) and their costumes as well as the Snap! stage and its background.

You first learned about sprites, costumes, and the Snap! stage in Unit 1 Lab 4 Activity 3: Investigating and Storing Images.

Your project should have characters or objects that move around (sprites) on top of a background image (the Snap! stage). You'll control how the sprites look by changing their costumes, and you'll control how the stage looks by changing its background.

Here are a few of the costumes included in Snap!. You can also import your own.
example sprite costume: cartoon of a person walking; they have brown skin and dark brown hair held back with a headband; in Snap!, this costume is called 'avery walking a'

A sprite is like an actor who can do many different things, such as move, talk, follow other sprites, and whatever else you program it to do!
A costume is a picture that can be "worn" by a sprite.

Here are a few of the backgrounds included in Snap!. You import your own backgrounds too.
example sprite background: cartoon of a bedroom with pink and yellow walls, a bed, and a computer; in Snap!, this costume is called 'Bedroom 1'

The stage is the big rectangle in the upper right of the Snap! window. (It's white when you first open Snap!.) The stage is what users of your project see, and it's where your sprites live.
A background is a picture that can be "worn" by the stage.

image of the Snap! window with 'This is the Snap! stage.' typed in the big rectangle in the upper right of the Snap! window

See an example of two sprites (one with a costume and one without) and the stage with a background.

image of the Snap! stage with two sprites and the text: 'This is the Snap! stage. It has a background called Brick Wall 1. Here are two sprites: The first one has no costume (all sprites start out looking like an arrowhead). The second one has a costume called girl3 basketball.'

In this activity, you learned about sprites, costumes, the Snap! stage, and stage backgrounds.