animations

Animations

Lets start with the AnimationManager. This handles storing and playing animations. Below I have created new SpriteManager object that will load all of our character animations.

private SpriteManager characters = new SpriteManager("C:\\Path\\To\\File\\characters.png", "Characters");

Now lets start by loading the characters in and assigning the animations.

private Animation up;
private Animation down;
private Animation left;
private Animation right;

Now with the SpriteManager we can put the getMultipleSprites method to use. getMultipleSprites is a method used to get multiple sections of a sprite-sheet all in one call.

getMultipleSprites(int x, int y, int width, int height, Direction direction,
                                              int spriteCount, int xOffset, int yOffset);

As from the java documentation:

/**
     * Get multiple images from an image.
     *
     * @param x           the X coordinate.
     * @param y           the Y coordinate.
     * @param width       the width
     * @param height      the height
     * @param direction   the direction
     * @param spriteCount the amount of sprites to get.
     * @param xOffset     the offset to add/subtract since spacing between sprites can vary.
     * @param yOffset     the offset to add/subtract since spacing between sprites can vary.
     * @return an array of sprites.
     */

BufferedImage[] imagesUp = characters.getMultipleSprites(0, 96, 32, 32, Direction.RIGHT, 3, 0, 0);
BufferedImage[] imagesDown = characters.getMultipleSprites(0, 0, 32, 32, Direction.RIGHT, 3, 0, 0);
BufferedImage[] imagesLeft = characters.getMultipleSprites(0, 32, 32, 32, Direction.RIGHT, 3, 0, 0);
BufferedImage[] imagesRight = characters.getMultipleSprites(0, 64, 32, 32, Direction.RIGHT, 3, 0, 0);

Make sure you set the xOffset and yOffset to your needs.

Now lets actually create the animation.

up = new Animation(bup, 20, true, 0);
down = new Animation(bdown, 20, true, 1);
left = new Animation(bleft, 20, true, 2);
right = new Animation(bright, 20, true, 3);

Next we add them to a list for easy use.

List<Animation> animations = new ArrayList<Animation>();
animations.add(up);
animations.add(down);
animations.add(left);
animations.add(right);

Finally we initialize a new AnimationManager with the animations we created.

am = new AnimationManager(animations);

Playing the animation

Now that we have our animations ready lets play them. Usually your player will have a variable telling you what direction they are facing, use this.

Direction d = player.getDirectionFacing();

Now lets play the animation based on what way we are facing.

am.startAnimation(d == Direction.UP ? up : d == Direction.DOWN ? down : d == Direction.LEFT ? left : right);

Next, draw the current frame of the animation.

am.drawPlayingAnimation(graphics, player.getX(), player.getY());

Finally, in the tick method we update the animation.

am.updatePlayingAnimation();