How to make my sprite go back to its original frame after changing in pygame

Question

I'm a beginner when it comes to python and I'm making a pygame game and want to have the player's sprite change to a different image frame when it goes up and down and return back to its original image afterwards. This is my code at the moment:

# Define the Player object by extending pygame.sprite.Sprite
class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite):
    def __init__(self):
        super(Player, self).__init__()
        self.surf = pygame.image.load("Sprites/Characters/tile_0002.png").convert() # load image for sprite
        self.surf.set_colorkey((0, 0, 0), RLEACCEL) # set the colour to the image's values
        self.surf = pygame.transform.scale(self.surf, [25, 25]) # scale sprite image down
        self.rect = self.surf.get_rect(center=(-SCREEN_WIDTH + 50, SCREEN_HEIGHT,)) # where the sprite starts on the screen

    # when the sprite is going up or down
    def vertical(self):
        self.surf = pygame.image.load("Sprites/Characters/tile_0003.png").convert()
        self.surf.set_colorkey((0, 0, 0), RLEACCEL)
        self.surf = pygame.transform.scale(self.surf, [25, 25])

    # Move the sprite based on user keypresses
    def update(self, pressed_keys):
        if pressed_keys[K_UP]:
            self.rect.move_ip(0, -5)
            self.vertical() # change the image frame
        if pressed_keys[K_DOWN]:
            self.rect.move_ip(0, 5)
            self.vertical() # change the image frame
        if pressed_keys[K_LEFT]:
            self.rect.move_ip(-5, 0)
        if pressed_keys[K_RIGHT]:
            self.rect.move_ip(5, 0)

        # Keep player on the screen
        if self.rect.left < 0:
            self.rect.left = 0
        if self.rect.right > SCREEN_WIDTH:
            self.rect.right = SCREEN_WIDTH
        if self.rect.top <= 0:
            self.rect.top = 0
        if self.rect.bottom >= 500:
            self.rect.bottom = 500

as you can see I thought that making a function for changing the frame would change it when going up, but switch it back once you either stop moving or move left or right to look like this: normal frame up and down frame

Making another function for making it the original frame might work but is there a simpler way of doing this?

Answer 1

Create functions that set the sprite dependency on an argument and change the image depending on the key pressed, e.g.:

class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite):
    def __init__(self):
        super(Player, self).__init__()
        self.surf_horizontal = pygame.image.load("Sprites/Characters/tile_0002.png").convert()
        self.surf_horizontal.set_colorkey((0, 0, 0), RLEACCEL)
        self.surf_horizontal = pygame.transform.scale(self.surf_horizontal, [25, 25])
        self.surf_vertical = pygame.image.load("Sprites/Characters/tile_0003.png").convert()
        self.surf_vertical.set_colorkey((0, 0, 0), RLEACCEL)
        self.surf_vertical = pygame.transform.scale(self.surf_vertical, [25, 25])
        self.surf = self.surf_horizontal
        self.rect = self.surf.get_rect(center=(-SCREEN_WIDTH + 50, SCREEN_HEIGHT,))

    # when the sprite is going up or down
    def change_image(self, image_type):
        if image_type == "vertical":
            self.surf = self.surf_vertical
        else:
            self.surf = self.surf_horizontal

    # Move the sprite based on user keypresses
    def update(self, pressed_keys):
        image_type = "horizontal"
        if pressed_keys[K_UP]:
            self.rect.move_ip(0, -5)
            image_type = "vertical"
        if pressed_keys[K_DOWN]:
            self.rect.move_ip(0, 5)
            image_type = "vertical"
        if pressed_keys[K_LEFT]:
            self.rect.move_ip(-5, 0)
        if pressed_keys[K_RIGHT]:
            self.rect.move_ip(5, 0)
            
        self.change_image(image_type)