How to Make a Sprite Move When Key Is Held Down

How can I make a sprite move when key is held down

You can use pygame.key.get_pressed to do that.

example:

while running:
    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()  #checking pressed keys
    if keys[pygame.K_UP]:
        y1 -= 1
    if keys[pygame.K_DOWN]:
        y1 += 1

moving a sprite while holding down a key not working

At the beginning of your code (but after you call pygame.init()), add the following line of code:

pygame.key.set_repeat(10)

This will post keyboard events to the event queue every 10 milliseconds even if the key was already pressed.

How to make a sprite carry on moving after they key has been released

Add an attribute that indicates the direction and speed of movement. Increase the speed a small amount for each frame that the button is pressed. Scale the speed in every frame by a friction factor:

class Player:
    def __init__(self):
        # [...]

        self.speed_x = 0
        self.speed_y = 0
        self.acceleration = 0.1
        self.friction = 0.98
        self.max_speed = 5

    def move(self):
        self.speed_x += self.acceleration * (keys[pg.K_RIGHT] - keys[pg.K_LEFT])
        self.speed_y += self.acceleration * (keys[pg.K_DOWN] - keys[pg.K_UP])
        self.speed_x = max(-self.max_speed, min(self.max_speed, self.speed_x))
        self.speed_y = max(-self.max_speed, min(self.max_speed, self.speed_y))  
        
        self.pos_x += self.speed_x 
        self.pos_y += self.speed_y      
        self.rect.center = round(self.pos_x), round(self.pos_y)

        self.speed_x *= self.friction
        self.speed_y *= self.friction        

How to make the sprite move once when arrow key is pressed?

I figured it out. Under keyReleased, set xv=0. Then when you release the arrow key, the sprite will stop moving.

Make Character Keep Moving While Key Held Down

It is a matter of Indentation. You've to apply the movement in the application loop rather than the event loop:

while True:
    fpsClock.tick(FPS)
    WIN.fill(WHITE)
    player.draw_player(WIN)

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == QUIT:
            pygame.quit()
            sys.exit()
        elif event.type == KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == K_UP and player.y <= 0:
                player.up = True
            elif event.key == K_DOWN:
                player.down = True
            elif event.key == K_LEFT:
                player.left = True
            elif event.key == K_RIGHT:
                player.right = True
        elif event.type == KEYUP:
            if event.key == K_UP:
                player.up = False
            if event.key == K_DOWN:
                player.down = False
            if event.key == K_LEFT:
                player.left = False
            if event.key == K_RIGHT:
                player.right = False

    #<--| INDENTATION
    if player.left:
        player.x -= 5
    if player.right:
        player.x += 5
    if player.up:
        player.y -= 5
    if player.down:
        player.y += 5

    pygame.display.update()

---

Alternatively you can use pygame.key.get_pressed() rather than the KEYDOWN and KEYUP event:

while True:
    fpsClock.tick(FPS)
    WIN.fill(WHITE)
    player.draw_player(WIN)

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == QUIT:
            pygame.quit()
            sys.exit()

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    player.left, player.right, player.up, player.down = False, False, False, False
    if keys[K_LEFT]:
        player.x -= 5
        player.left = True
    if keys[K_RIGHT]:
        player.x += 5
        player.right = True
    if keys[K_UP]:
        player.y -= 5
        player.up = True
    if keys[K_DOWN]:
        player.y += 5
        player.down = True

    pygame.display.update()

---

To control the animation speed, add an attribute self.animation_frames = 10. This attributes controls how many frames each image of the animation is shown. Compute the image index dependent on the attribute.

walking_count has to be incremented in Player.draw_player rather than the application loop.

To ensure that the correct "standing" image is displayed, you have to add an attribute self.standing. Set the attribute dependent on the current direction in draw_player. If the player is not moving, the display the current standing image:

class Player:
    def __init__(self, x, y):
        # [...]

        self.animation_frames = 10
        self.standing = standing_left

    def draw_player(self, win):

        # get image list
        if self.left:
            image_list = left
            self.standing = standing_left
        else self.right:
            image_list = right
            self.standing = standing_right
        else:
            image_list = [self.standing]

        # increment walk count and get image list
        image_index = self.walking_count // self.animation_frames
        if image_index >= len(image_list):
            image_index = 0
            self.walking_count = 0
        self.walking_count += 1

        WIN.blit(image_list[image_index], (self.x, self.y))

Java Move Sprite Constantly While Key Binding is Pressed

Is there a way to prevent to the hesitation of the movement.

You can use a Swing Timer to schedule the animation. Check out Motion Using the Keyboard for a working example.

Python sprite not moving when key is held down

Generally you blit() images on to the screen (pygame.display.set_mode()), for the changes to to reflect on the screen we call pygame.display.update(), In your case the game never comes the statement, which is out of while loop.

Pygame sprite not moving when key pressed

There are some mistakes. The first mistake is a typo. It has to be event.key rather than pygame.key.

Also, you must blit the sprite in the application loop, not the event loop, in the location stored in rect. Get the rectangle (rect) before the loop. Move the rectangle in the event loop and blit the sprite in every frame at rect:

rect = sprite1.get_rect()

running = True
while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
                rect = rect.move(1, 0)
            elif event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
                rect = rect.move(-1, 0)
              
    screen.blit(background_image, (0, 0)) 
    screen.blit(sprite1, rect)
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

---

Note, you can use move_ip() rather than move:

rect = rect.move((-1, 0))

rect.move_ip(-1, 0)

---

However, use pygame.key.get_pressed() for a continuous movement:

rect = sprite1.get_rect()
speed = 1

running = True
while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
    
    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    rect.x += (keys[pygame.K_RIGHT] - keys[pygame.K_LEFT]) * speed
    rect.y += (keys[pygame.K_DOWN] - keys[pygame.K_UP]) * speed
              
    screen.blit(background_image, (0, 0)) 
    screen.blit(sprite1, rect)
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

The keyboard events (see pygame.event module) occur only once when the state of a key changes. The KEYDOWN event occurs once every time a key is pressed. KEYUP occurs once every time a key is released. Use the keyboard events for a single action or a step-by-step movement.

pygame.key.get_pressed() returns a list with the state of each key. If a key is held down, the state for the key is True, otherwise False. Use pygame.key.get_pressed() to evaluate the current state of a button and get continuous movement.

---

Complete example:

import pygame

icon1 = pygame.image.load("Firstpygamegame/santa-claus.png")
pygame.display.set_icon(icon1)

screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
pygame.display.set_caption("Gift Catcher")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
background_image = pygame.image.load("Firstpygamegame/wintervillage.png")

sprite1 = pygame.image.load("Firstpygamegame/santabag2.png")
rect = sprite1.get_rect()
speed = 1

running = True
while running:
    clock.tick(60)
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
    
    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    rect.x += (keys[pygame.K_RIGHT] - keys[pygame.K_LEFT]) * speed
    rect.y += (keys[pygame.K_DOWN] - keys[pygame.K_UP]) * speed
              
    screen.blit(background_image, (0, 0)) 
    screen.blit(sprite1, rect)
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

---

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