- For technical reasons, Costume # (block) redirects here. For the block, see Costume Number (block).
- This article is about different appearances of a sprite. For the place to edit costumes, see Paint Editor.
A costume is one out of possibly many "frames" or alternate appearances of a sprite. Sprites can change their look to any of their costumes. They can be named, edited, created, and deleted, but every sprite must have at least one costume. One of the most common uses of costumes is to make an animation for a game or other project.
Creation
There are three main ways of getting a costume or backdrop for a sprite or stage.
- Drawing one using the inbuilt Scratch Paint Editor, by clicking on the costume or backdrop tab, and clicking the "Paint" button
- Selecting a costume from the library, which can be accessed using the "Choose a Costume" button at the bottom of the costumes tab
- Getting an image or multiple images that exist as files on the computer by clicking the "Upload Costume" button under the costumes tab. Uploading an animated GIF file into Scratch will split the gif into many costumes so it can be played using the Next costume block.
One used to be able to create a costume using a device's camera with the "Create a Costume from Webcam" feature. However, this was removed in May 2021.[1]
Editing
- Main article: Paint Editor
There are two different costume types: bitmap, which uses pixels to create an image, and vector, which uses points to create lines and curves.
These tools are found in both the bitmap and the vector editor:
- The brush tool is used to make general shapes, and it is the basic costume-making tool.
- The line tool is for creating straight edges, which are hard to create with the brush.
- The rectangle tool (press and hold shift while drawing for a square) is a quicker way to draw a rectangle or square than drawing it out with the line or brush.
- The oval tool (press and hold shift while drawing for a circle) creates a better circle or oval than the brush tool.
- To use the text tool, one clicks on the place they want to place the text, and a text box will pop up for them to type their text. When they are finished, they can click outside the text box to stamp it.
- The fill with color tool fills the area with a similar colour to the pixel selected, with the selected color.
- The eraser is similar the brush, but instead of stamping color, it erases color.
- The select tool can be used to move the selected space in the bitmap editor, or the shape(s) in the vector editor, to a new position. In the vector editor, there are also addition tools, such as Forward, Backward, Group, and Ungroup.
The reshape tool is exclusive to the vector editor. To use the reshape tool, one must first select an item, then dots will appear around the vertices as points. One can move, delete or create the points to create different shapes.
Deletion
Clicking the trash can button towards the upper-right of each costume's icon in the Costume Pane will delete it, provided that it is not the only costume of the sprite. It is possible to restore the most recently deleted costume, as long as nothing else has since been deleted, by selecting "Restore Costume" from the Edit Menu.
Blocks
There are four blocks that relate to costumes, which are as follows:
The first three blocks can be located in the Looks block section, while the fourth can be found in the Sensing block area.
Uses
- The first block is used for the sprite to transfer its look between any of its costumes.
- The second block is mainly used in animation. A block that does the opposite has been suggested, but it can simply be done with the following code:
switch costume to ((costume [number v]) - (1))
- The third block contains the number of the current costume being used. It can be read through other blocks, and specific actions can be taken.
- The fourth block allows for any sprite's X Position, Y Position, direction, costume number, size, or volume to be read, as well as the stage's backdrop number and volume.
Costumes Tab
To see the costumes of a sprite, click on the Costumes Tab. This will display a list of the costumes in the sprite, as well as open the paint editor.
