Follow the Player

Part of the Worlds section of Coddy's Pygame journey. Lesson 21 of 35.

A drifting camera leaves the player behind. Instead, set the camera from the player every frame, after the player has moved:

camera_x = player.centerx - WIDTH // 2

The window's middle is WIDTH // 2, 288 pixels from its left edge. With the camera 288 pixels left of the player's centre, the player is drawn in the middle of the window. Walk right and the level slides left under a player who stays put on the screen.

Set the camera after the collisions, so it uses where the player ended up this frame, not where it was before. At the start, the window shows empty space left of the level: the next lesson fixes that.

Challenge

Easy

Remove the drift.
After the collisions, set camera_x = player.centerx - WIDTH // 2 every frame.

Try it yourself

import pygame

TILE = 36
WIDTH = 576
SPEED = 4
GRAVITY = 1
JUMP = -15
MAX_FALL = 12

LEVEL = [
    "................................................",
    "................................................",
    "#...........###..........####..........###.....#",
    "#..............................................#",
    "#.....####.........###.........###.............#",
    "#..............................................#",
    "#.P........#####.........######.........####...#",
    "#..............................................#",
    "#..............................................#",
    "################################################",
]

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, 360))
pygame.display.set_caption("Camera")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

block_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/block.png").convert_alpha()
player_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/player.png").convert_alpha()

walls = []
for row, line in enumerate(LEVEL):
    for col, char in enumerate(line):
        if char == "#":
            walls.append(pygame.Rect(col * TILE, row * TILE, TILE, TILE))
        elif char == "P":
            start = (col * TILE + TILE // 2, row * TILE + TILE)

level_width = len(LEVEL[0]) * TILE
player = player_img.get_rect(midbottom=start)
vel_y = 0
on_ground = False
camera_x = 0

running = True
while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        elif event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN and event.key in (pygame.K_SPACE, pygame.K_UP):
            if on_ground:
                vel_y = JUMP
        elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP and event.key in (pygame.K_SPACE, pygame.K_UP):
            if vel_y < -4:
                vel_y = -4

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    dx = 0
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        dx -= SPEED
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        dx += SPEED

    player.x += dx
    for wall in walls:
        if player.colliderect(wall):
            if dx > 0:
                player.right = wall.left
            elif dx < 0:
                player.left = wall.right

    vel_y = min(vel_y + GRAVITY, MAX_FALL)
    player.y += vel_y
    on_ground = False
    for wall in walls:
        if player.colliderect(wall):
            if vel_y > 0:
                player.bottom = wall.top
                on_ground = True
            elif vel_y < 0:
                player.top = wall.bottom
            vel_y = 0

    if camera_x < level_width - WIDTH:
        camera_x += 2

    screen.fill((140, 200, 240))
    for wall in walls:
        screen.blit(block_img, (wall.x - camera_x, wall.y))
    screen.blit(player_img, (player.x - camera_x, player.y))
    pygame.display.flip()
    clock.tick(60)

pygame.quit()