Positioning and Orientation of Actors

Positioning and Orientation of Actors#

In this section, you’ll learn how to position and orient actors within the coordinate system.

Basics#

First, a quick recap of the core concepts:

  • You can create an actor at any position:

    actor = Actor((50, 120))  # creates an actor at position (50, 120)

  • The coordinate system has its origin at the top-left corner:

    The coordinate system

  • The position of an actor always refers to its center (also called its origin point).

Changing an Actor’s Position Later#

You can also adjust an actor’s position after it has been created by using the x, y, or position attributes:

my_actor.x = 120          # sets the x-coordinate to 120  
my_actor.y = 90           # sets the y-coordinate to 90  
my_actor.position = (120, 90)  # sets position to x=120, y=90

Changing an Actor’s Direction#

An actor’s orientation can be controlled via the direction attribute. This allows you to rotate the actor to face a specific direction:

The image below shows how the direction values are interpreted:

Actor orientation

The meaning of direction:#

  • 0 → up

  • 90 → right | -90 → left

  • 180 or -180 → down

Changing the Actor’s Origin#

You can change the origin (i.e., the point that defines the actor’s position) using the origin attribute:

a1 = Actor((0, 20))
a1.origin = "topleft"  # sets the origin to the top-left corner
Actor origin

(0|20) now refers to the top-left corner of the actor.#

You can also set the center or top-left corner of an actor explicitly:

a1 = miniworlds.Actor((0, 20))
a1.topleft = (20, 30)   # sets the actor’s top-left corner to (20, 30)
a1.center = (20, 30)    # sets the actor’s center to (20, 30)
Contents