Playing multiple animations at the same time in pygame

December 9, 2022

I have an Animation function that increments the animation counter over time according to the parameters it receives.
When I use the function for a single object it works fine, but when I try to apply it to the second one the first one works and the second one doesn’t.
Direct;

torchACount+=1
if torchACount>3:
    torchACount=0

I could do it by fps by typing inside the main loop but I want to do it by time. I think the error I get in the function I wrote is due to the time element, but I can’t find how to solve it. Do I need to use a class?

My exaple code:

import pygame
from pygame.locals import *

pygame.init()
screen=pygame.display.set_mode((480, 480))
clock=pygame.time.Clock()
time=pygame.time.get_ticks()

torchAImageList=[pygame.transform.scale(pygame.image.load(f"torchA{i+1}.png"),(48,96)) for i in range(4)]
torchACount=0
torchADelay=100

torchBImageList=[pygame.transform.scale(pygame.image.load(f"torchB{i+1}.png"),(48,96)) for i in range(4)]
torchBCount=0
torchBDelay=100


def animation(delay,animationNumber,limitOfAnimation):
    global time
    if pygame.time.get_ticks()-time>delay:
        animationNumber+=1
        if animationNumber==limitOfAnimation:
            animationNumber=0
        time=pygame.time.get_ticks()
    return animationNumber          
    
    
while True:
    for ev in pygame.event.get():
        if ev.type == QUIT:
            pygame.quit()
            
    clock.tick(60)
    screen.fill((0, 0, 0))
    
    screen.blit(torchAImageList[torchACount],(100,100))
    torchACount=animation(torchADelay,torchACount,4)
    
    screen.blit(torchBImageList[torchBCount],(300,100))
    torchBCount=animation(torchBDelay,torchBCount,4)
    
    pygame.display.flip()

Images:

>Solution :

You need a separate time variable for each object. I suggest to use a class and to store the time in an attribute:

import pygame
from pygame.locals import *

pygame.init()
screen=pygame.display.set_mode((480, 480))
clock=pygame.time.Clock()
time=pygame.time.get_ticks()

class Tourch:
    def __init__(self, x, y, imageList):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
        self.imageList = imageList
        self.count = 0
        self.delay = 100
        self.time = 0

    def animate(self):
        currentTime =  pygame.time.get_ticks()
        if currentTime - self.time > self.delay:
            self.time = currentTime
            self.count += 1
            if self.count >= len(self.imageList):
                self.count = 0

    def draw(self, targetSurf):
        targetSurf.blit(self.imageList[self.count], (self.x, self.y))

tourchA = Tourch(100, 100, [pygame.transform.scale(pygame.image.load(f"torchA{i+1}.png"),(48,96)) for i in range(4)])
tourchB = Tourch(300, 100, [pygame.transform.scale(pygame.image.load(f"torchB{i+1}.png"),(48,96)) for i in range(4)])

run = True
while run:
    for ev in pygame.event.get():
        if ev.type == QUIT:
            run = False

    tourchA.animate()
    tourchB.animate()
            
    clock.tick(60)
    screen.fill((0, 0, 0))
    tourchA.draw(screen)
    tourchB.draw(screen)
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()