4.03 Add your clones
In this step, you will make some clones that will swarm, flock, or school together.
Choose: Choose an animal sprite. It is best to choose a sprite that represents a social animal, but the choice is up to you. If you prefer, you could draw your own sprite, or upload one to Scratch from a picture you have found online.
- Click Upload from the sprite menu to open up a file browser.
- Choose a file and click on Open when you are done.
Click on Choose a Sprite to open the Sprite Library:
You can search for a sprite, or browse for one by category. Click on a sprite to add it to your project.
You can create backdrops and costumes for sprites in the Paint editor, using just shapes.
Go to the Choose a Sprite or Choose a Backdrop menu and choose the Paint option:
Select which tool(s) to use to make the shape(s) that you want:
- Circle: Click on the Circle tool to draw a circle. Press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard to draw a perfect circle.
- Rectangle: Click on the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle. Press and hold the Shift key to draw a square.
- Triangle: Use the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle or a square. Click on the Reshape tool and select the corner that you want to remove. Click on the Delete tool to turn your shape into a triangle.
You can use the Fill tool to change the colour of a shape:
You may need to use the Forward and Backward tools to move your shapes forward or backward so that they are positioned correctly within your image:
You can select all the shapes and Group them together so that you can adjust them or move them as one shape:
Here is an example of a sprite created with the Circle and Rectangle tools:
Pig: See inside
Remember to name the costumes and backdrops that you create in the Paint editor.
This sprite will have lots of clones, so it might be a little too big for the stage to begin with.
Change the size property of the sprite to a value you think is sensible.
When the flag is clicked, your animal sprite should generate some clones, and then hide itself.
Choose: You can choose how many clones are generated.
Your cloned animals now need to gather some food. To help them out, you can use your mouse-pointer to guide them.
Add blocks so that the clones move towards the mouse-pointer in a random fashion.
The following code will have the clones glide towards the mouse-pointer in a random time.
The following code will have the clones glide towards the mouse-pointer, but will add some randomness to the position.
Test: Have a go at running your code. Do your clones behave as you expect? Do you need to alter the number of clones that are made, or the way they move?