Animating your Sprites to Make Greeting Cards

This lesson will lead you through: Selecting a background Adding letter sprites Using the random function to animate letters Adding sound Once you have completed the tutorial, tweak the code to create your own card.

Choose a background Click on the Stage area and select a new backdrop

Add sprites and change their costumes to letters to spell out a greeting Add a new sprite Click on the costumes tab and change the costume to a letter Do this for each letter in your greeting (I spelled Happy Holidays)

Animate the letters of your first word For your first letter, enter the following script: For each subsequent letter in your first word, edit the x value of the glide to block by adding 50 so that the letters don’t overlap once they finish gliding into position

Animate the letters of your second word For your first letter, enter the following script: For each subsequent letter in your second word, edit the x value of the glide to block by adding 50 so that the letters don’t overlap once they finish gliding into position

The Pick Random () to () Block This block is used in our letter animation to pick a random starting position The pick random () to () will pick a number between (or including) the endpoint values you enter This can be used for animation in greeting card or to start predators off in a game

Add a Background Animation Add a new sprite (I chose to add the Tree-lights sprite)

Add a Background Sprite Once you’ve added the sprite, let’s add sounds. Go to the Sounds tab of your sprite and click on the “Choose sound from library” button. Add Xylo1 to this sprite. We will add these in later.

Add a Background Sprite Once you’ve added the sounds, let’s animate this sprite. Go to the costumes tab and click on the button “Paint new costume” Add the same costume again (tree-lights) Edit it by clicking the “flip left-right” button

Add a Background Sprite Add the following script:

Add a Background Sprite Add the following script:

Add a Background Sprite Let’s create some snowflakes. Add in this sprite:

Add a Background Sprite Let’s create some snowflakes. Add in this sprite:

Add a Background Sprite Add the following script to your snowflake sprite:

The Clone Feature Cloning is a feature that allows a sprite to create a clone, or semi-duplicate, of itself, while the project is running. Clones of a sprite will be the same as the original, or parent sprite, but as a separate instance. Clones inherit the parent's scripts, costumes, sounds, and properties, but can then be modified. There is a limit of 300 clones per project to prevent excessive lagging or crashes.

The Clone Feature Cloning is a feature that allows a sprite to create a clone, or semi-duplicate, of itself, while the project is running. Clones of a sprite will be the same as the original, or parent sprite, but as a separate instance. Clones inherit the parent's scripts, costumes, sounds, and properties, but can then be modified. There is a limit of 300 clones per project to prevent excessive lagging or crashes.

Let’s Add Some More Detail Create another sprite:

Let’s Add Some More Detail Add this script to animate your snowman:

Let’s Add Some More Detail Let’s add a penguin now.

Let’s Add Some More Detail Add this script to make your penguin jump up and down:

Let’s Add Some More Detail Finally, let’s get rid of the cat and add a dove.

Let’s Add Some More Detail Make it so your dove has two costumes, by going to the costumes tab and adding in both dove costumes.

Let’s Add Some More Detail Finally, add the following script to your dove.

Send it to me and your friends/family! Happy holidays! I would love to see your creations, so tweak this card to make it your own and then share it and send me the link. You can share this card with your friends and family by sending them the shared link, too!