Moving Sprite (SFML) in c++ using Loops - c++

Question

I am new to c++ and as well as SFML. I am trying to make my sprite object move down in position relative to its last position using a loop. I am looking for the animation of it sprite object falling when the program starts.
I thought implementing a the sleep function in my for loop would help solve the issue i was having where the program would just display the object at the last iteration of the loop. However my program just freezes and crashes.
Looking for some direction. Maybe the sleep function isn't the right thing to call here?
#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
#include <Windows.h>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
// Create the window here. Calling out the dimensions
sf::RenderWindow window(sf::VideoMode(800, 600), "Example Window");
// run the program as long as the window is open
while (window.isOpen())
{
sf::Event event;
while (window.pollEvent(event))
{
//close window we requested
if (event.type == sf::Event::Closed)
{
window.close();
}
}
window.clear(sf::Color::Black);
sf::Texture texture;
if (!texture.loadFromFile("c:\\abstract.png"))
{
cout<<"Failed to load image...";
}
sf::Sprite sprite;
sprite.setTexture(texture);
sprite.setTextureRect(sf::IntRect(20,20,30,30));
for (float i = 0; i < 30.; i++)
{
sprite.move(sf::Vector2f(5.f, i));
window.draw(sprite);
Sleep(50);
}
window.display();
}
return 0;
}

Answer 1

What you are doing in your for is : Processing, drawing, processing, drawing... And finally displaying what you've drawn using window.display().
Meaning that what will be displayed on your window every frames, is the result of your "Processing, drawing" thing, in other word, 30 times your sprite at different positions.
What you want is to move your sprite a bit every frames. Thus, you have to finish your current while (window.isOpen()) iteration to move your sprite, draw it, and display it, and this over and over.
What you should do is declaring your sprite outside of your game loop (Which is while (window.isOpen())), and move it in this loop.
Step by step, your program should look like:
[Start]
Initialize your context
Create a sprite
Start looping
Clear the screen
Collect inputs
Move your sprite
Draw your sprite
Display your drawing on the window
End looping
[Exit]
The last thing you will need to handle is deltaTime (The timestep). Because if you move your sprite from (x,y) every frames, it means that the faster your computer is (Able to render a lot of frames quickly), the faster your sprite will move. In order to fix this problem, you'll have to move your sprite considering the time elapsed between the current frame and the previous frame (The slower is your PC, the more your sprite will move in one frame, the faster is your PC, the less your sprite will move in one frame). Timestep will cause your sprite to move (x,y) per second instead of (x,y) per frame, which is what you want in most graphic applications.