Another pygame example for audiogame programming

[Edit: if the sounds are not played at the expected moment (pygame > 1.7.1), this might be caused by a large default buffer length; in that case add pygame.mixer.pre_init(22050, -16, 2, 1024) before pygame.init(); more details there]


Example 3: move an object to the left or to the right with the arrow keys

This is a basic game loop, at last. I might try to simplify it further.

You can download all the examples (with the sounds) here.

Some pygame examples for audiogame programming

While there are tutorials for pygame, they often contain graphic examples. So I have started to write some very simple examples focused on audiogames programming.

To use this tutorial, you should already know Python. The Python tutorial is a good start; there is Dive into Python too. To run the examples, you must have Python and pygame installed.

You can download all the examples (with the sounds) here.

Example 1: play a sound and change its stereo position

The example 1 shows how to play a sound and pan it. To go further:

• about pygame's sound mixer
• about pygame's initialization

Edit: warning! nowadays, it might be necessary to initialize the display or no sound will be heard! for example: pygame.display.set_mode((200,100))

# example1.py
# play a sound to the left, to the right and to the center

# import the time standard module
import time

# import the pygame module
import pygame


# start pygame
pygame.init()

# load a sound file into memory
sound = pygame.mixer.Sound("bird.ogg")

# start playing the sound
# and remember on which channel it is being played
channel = sound.play()
# set the volume of the channel
# so the sound is only heard to the left
channel.set_volume(1, 0)
# wait for 1 second
time.sleep(1)

# do the same to the right
channel = sound.play()
channel.set_volume(0, 1)
time.sleep(1)

# do the same to the center
channel = sound.play()
channel.set_volume(1, 1)
time.sleep(1)

Example 2: read keyboard events

The example 2 shows how to read events from the keyboard. To go further:

• about events
• about the keyboard

# example2.py
# start playing a sound when a key is pressed
# exit if the letter "q" or the "escape" key is pressed

# import the pygame module
import pygame


# start pygame
pygame.init()

# load a sound file into memory
sound = pygame.mixer.Sound("bird.ogg")

# start the display (required by the event loop)
pygame.display.set_mode((320, 200))

# loop forever (until a break occurs)
while True:
  # wait for an event
  event = pygame.event.wait()
  # if the event is about a keyboard button that have been pressed...
  if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
      # ... then start playing the sound
      sound.play()
      # and if the button is the "q" letter or the "escape" key...
      if event.unicode == "q" or event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE:
          # ... then exit from the while loop
          break

That's all for the moment!