Building a better animation infrastructure

So I’m working on a really basic “game” just to really test out sprite animation and make a decent, reusable infrastructure.
basically in GraphicsShell I set up a loopGame that double buffers and renders, and renders then updates.
I set it up to to loop every 30 milliseconds, in which it calls the draw methods of my background class and player class.
in player, I use to a subclass to load multiple frames into an arrays.

Some animations I would like to be “forced” as the frames cant change until the array finished the animation, (for example, and attack animation would be executed one, and not repeated) while other animations could be changed mid array loop such (such as changing from a left facing run animation to a down facing animation)

GraphicsShell

package gameshellv2;


//imports  
public class GraphicsShell extends JFrame {  
     
    int x = 0,y = 0;  
    private Image dbImage;  
    private Graphics dbg;  
   
    int numOfTimes;  
    long Interval;  
     
  
    Player playerA;  
    Background masterBackground;  
    BufferedImage sprite;  
    final int ANIM_SPEED = 30;  
      
    public static void main (String[] args) {  
      
        GraphicsShell MasterShell = new GraphicsShell();  
  
    }  
    public GraphicsShell(){  
      
      //setting up the JFrame  
         
        lnitialize();  
        loopGame();  
          
          
    }  
    public void loopGame() {  
      
          
        long time1= System.currentTimeMillis();  
  
    numOfTimes = 1;  
    long time2 = time1 + 1;  
    while (true) {  
                long time3= System.currentTimeMillis();  
          
                  
        if (time2 <= time3) {  
          
                    time1 = System.currentTimeMillis();  
                gameRender();  
                gameUpdate();  
                 
                time2 = time1+ANIM_SPEED;  
                 
                numOfTimes++;  
                if (numOfTimes == 31) {  
                numOfTimes = 0;  
                  
                }  
                }  
    }  
    }  
    private void gameUpdate() {    
        Graphics g = this.getGraphics();  
        g.drawImage(dbImage, 0, 0, this);        
    }  
    
    private void lnitialize() {  
     //setting up references to BG and Player  
       //setting up doubleBuffer references for the sake    
    }  
    private void gameRender() {          
        dbg = masterBackground.draw(dbg,numOfTimes);  
        dbg = playerA.draw(dbg,numOfTimes);   
    }  
    public class AL extends KeyAdapter {  
      key pressed and released stuff being passed to playerA  
        }  
    }        
}  

Player


package gameshellv2;  
  
//setting up imports  
  
public class Player implements Drawable{  
   
    int x =10,  y=10;  
    
 setting up sprite getters  
     
//arrays  
  
 BufferedImage[] rightFrames,leftFrames,upFrames,downFrames,currentFrames;  
 BufferedImage[] rightIdleFrames,upIdleFrames,downIdleFrames,leftIdleFrames,lastFrames;   
 BufferedImage[] rightAttackStationary,leftAttackStationary,downAttackStationary;  
  
    final int PLAYER_BASE_SPEED = 2;  
    //keydown booleans  
      
  
 //more variables  
      
    public Player() {  
        //resets the frame # and idle delay  
        frameNumber = 0;  
        idleDelay = 0;  
          
         
        init();  
    }  
    public void init () {  
        //bufferedImage arrays init.   
        //image and subimage getter initialization  
        spriteManager SM = new spriteManager();  
        //filling the movement arrays  
        SM.setSpriteArrays(downFrames);  
        SM.setSpriteArrays(upFrames);  
       //fills the rest of the arrays  
  
         currentFrames = rightIdleFrames;  
    }  
    @Override  
    public Graphics draw(Graphics g, int numOfTimes) {  
         if (numOfTimes % 5 == 0 ) {  
         sprite = currentFrames[frameNumber];  
          frameNumber++;  
        }  
          
         if (isActionAnimRunning) {  
                  
                    System.out.println("if(isActionAnimRunning) has executed");  
                  
               if (frameNumber == 6 ) {  
                 
                   isActionAnimRunning = false;  
                   currentFrames = rightIdleFrames;  
                   frameNumber = 0;  
                     
               }  
                 }   
         checkKeys();  
      
          
        g.drawImage(sprite , x,y, null);  
          
        if (frameNumber == currentFrames.length ) {  
            frameNumber = 0;  
        }  
        return g;  
       }  
    public void checkKeys() {  
    
          
          
       if (!isActionAnimRunning) {attack();}   
       if(frameNumber == currentFrames.length -1) {isActionAnimRunning = false;}  
       move();  
          
          
          
    }  
   
    public void attack () {  
       if (isRightDown) {  
          
            frameNumber = 0;  
            isActionAnimRunning = true;  
            currentFrames = rightAttackStationary;  
     
       }  
        if (isDownDown) {  
     
            frameNumber = 0;  
            isActionAnimRunning = true;  
            currentFrames = downAttackStationary;  
     
         
         
       }  
      
    }  
    public void move () {  //only changes frame and coords every 5 loops   
     if (isWDown) {  
         if(!isActionAnimRunning) {currentFrames = upFrames;}   
         y = y-PLAYER_BASE_SPEED;  
         idleDelay = 0;   
         
     }   
       if (isADown) {  
           if(!isActionAnimRunning) {currentFrames = leftFrames;}  
           x = x-PLAYER_BASE_SPEED;  
       idleDelay = 0;   
       }  
       if (isSDown) {  
           y = y+PLAYER_BASE_SPEED;  
if(!isActionAnimRunning) {currentFrames = downFrames;}  
           idleDelay = 0;   
       }  
       if (isDDown) {  
if(!isActionAnimRunning) {currentFrames = rightFrames;}  
          x = x+PLAYER_BASE_SPEED;  
       idleDelay = 0;   
       }  
       if (!isWDown && !isADown && !isSDown&& !isDDown) {  
           idleDelay++;  
      }  
       if (!isWDown && !isADown && !isSDown&& !isDDown && idleDelay  == 1) {  
             
           idleDelay = 0;   
           if (currentFrames == rightFrames) {  
           currentFrames = rightIdleFrames;             
           }  
           if (currentFrames == leftFrames) {  
           currentFrames = leftIdleFrames;             
           }  
           if (currentFrames == upFrames) {  
           currentFrames = upIdleFrames;             
           }  
           if (currentFrames == downFrames) {  
           currentFrames = downIdleFrames;             
           }  
        }      
    }  
      
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {  
      int keyCode = e.getKeyCode();  
          
         
      if(keyCode == e.VK_W){  
          isWDown = true;  
          isADown = false;  
          isSDown = false;  
          isDDown = false;  
        }  
        //setting up A,S, and D booleans  
        }  
       if(keyCode == e.VK_RIGHT) {  
           isRightDown = true;  
           isLeftDown = false;  
           isDownDown = false;  
       }  
      
       //setting up left,right,and down booleans  
    }  
     
 public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {  
 int keyCode = e.getKeyCode();  
        if(keyCode == e.VK_W){  
          isWDown = false;  
        }  
       //setting key codes to false in a similar fashion  
          
 }  
  
    public class spriteManager {  
      
        public spriteManager () {  
           //setting up sprite getters,  
   }  
          
         public void setSpriteArrays ( BufferedImage[] array) {  
        if (array == rightFrames) {  
        array[0] =   ss.grabSprite(1,1,24,24);    
        array[1] =   ss.grabSprite(26,1,24,24);    
        array[2] =   ss.grabSprite(1,26,24,24);    
        array[3] =   ss.grabSprite(26,26,24,24);    
        
        //more setting up sprites in a similar fashion  
        }  
        }  
         }    
    }      
}      



I feel that my current animation method are inefficient, in your opinion, whats the best way to handle these things?

Please use [.code][/code.] braces.

Tis’ done! sorry about that. Any suggestions though?

Are you using an inner class? Sprite manager inside player class?

Why?

yes, I am using an inner-sprite loading class, I just really did that because I wanted to isolate the hundred lines x,y,width,height code for loading the arrays.
Should I not? Is there a better way to do it?
Thanks in advance.

Create a dedicated Animation class which holds a bunch of frames, has a current frame, knows it animation speed, gets updated frequently to switch the current frame and is able to draw itself. Just a graphics work horse. No relation to the player whatsoever.

You can develop and test that completely independent of the player and the whole game.

Let the player use that, give it a reference to one current animation object. Exchange the animation object depending on the player’s state like left/right moving, attacking, etc.
No images stored inside the player.
When the player needs to be rendered, call the animation object to do the hard work. Use the player to hold its location and movement, hit points, inventory, etc.

Hmm… seems like a good idea, Ill try it out. Thanks! ;D