Scratch Lesson 9: Stories to Animation Part II

In Lesson 9: Stories to Animation Part II, I will show you how to add scene transition to your animation using broadcast message and "wait" control blocks.

Download the starting project for this lesson HERE.

To View or print the PDF version of this lesson, click HERE.

1: A Stage is Like a Sprite

A Stage is like a Sprite. A Stage can change its look, just as a Sprite. A Stage can also think (such as doing math) and feel (such as checking if a sprite is touching another on Stage), just like a Sprite. Both Stages and Sprites can send and receive "messages", which will be covered in this lesson.

The main difference between a Stage and a Sprite is that a Stage cannot move. Other than that, a Stage is just like a Sprite. I am already repeating myself but the following illustration should make this painfully clear.

A Sprite changes costumes.

A Stage changes backgrounds.

Both a Sprite and a Stage can think and feel.

Moreover, both Stages and Sprites can send and receive "messages".

2: Scene Transition and Broadcast Messages

First, we need to design the story board.

Scene 1 (the village background): Bobby stood in front of a remote village

Scene 2 (school): Bobby was in class, being teased at.

Scene 3 (training ground): Master Meow trained Bobby.

Scene 4 (fighting stage): Bobby fought with the Bully and won!

Next, we will use Broadcast Messages to let actors (sprites) know when and where to move.

Introducing Broadcast Messages

Each scene has a set of sprites and each sprite needs to know where to go in a scene. Moreover, some sprites do not show up in some scenes. To let sprites know when and where they will go as scenes change, we will use Broadcast Messages.

A Broadcast Message is a message sent by a Sprite or a Stage, and can be received by all Sprites. We will let Stage send out Broadcast Messages. Click Control button from the Tool Kit.

Drag out a "broadcast" block from Control Took Kit and drop it in Stage's Script Editor. Click the little down arrow and select a message or create a new message.

To create a new message, click the "new…" from the popped bubble and then enter "school" as message name. Click "OK" to save this new Broadcast Message.

In total, we need these messages: "To School", "To Village", "To Training Ground", "To Fighting Stage", "Done Laughing", and "Done Training".

Message 1: "To School"

Message 2: To School

Message 3: To Training Ground

Message 4: "To Fighting Stage"

Message 5: Done Laughing

Message 6: Done Training

VILLAGE SCENE

Stage would change to "Village" background and sends out a "To Village" broadcast message (to everyone). Upon receiving the "To Village" message, Bobby shows up on Stage; all other sprites just hide.

SCHOOL SCENE

Then the Stage would wait two seconds, change its background to "School", and then broadcast a "To School" message. Upon receiving the "To School" message, Bobby, bully, and sidekick all show up on Stage. They also would change to appropriate costumes: Bobby would change to "right" costume, bully to "up", and sidekick to "tease". Moreover, the bully Sprite would say "Ha Ha" for two seconds. I know it's not really serious bullying, but hey, verbal abuse is abuse nevertheless. Once finished laughing, the bully would send out a "Done Laughing" message.

The result snapshot of the Stage of this scene looks like this:

Upon receiving this "Done Laughing" message, Stage would change to "Training Ground" background and broadcast a "To Training Ground" message.

TRAINING SCENE

At the training scene, Bobby would spin-kick across the field for several times and then sends out a "Done Training" message.

The result snapshot of the Stage of this scene looks like this:

Upon receiving this "Done Training" message, Stage would change to "Fighting Stage" background and broadcast a "To Fighting Stage" message.

FIGHTING SCENE

At the fighting scene, Bobby would kick (by repeatedly changing between "fly kick left" and "fly kick right" costumes) Bully's until Bully is defeated. To animate the bully being kicked, just repeatedly change the bully's costumes between "up" and "down". Once the bully has been kicked badly enough, he would say "OK OK You Win".