i am confused about sprites :/

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

ok so I thought I had a firm standing on sprites. I have been developing games. BUT only mini games. because I have come across the probelm of having a lot of characters in a game. my understanding is that I would have to make a class for every single one. but I have read around that you can have a class be a main category and then make each individual person inside that class? also I have seen pictures for games and they have tons of pictures on one picture. it is like different actions for that character on one sheet of paper. I know you can have the sprite alternate but does the person split the picture up first or does the program process it?

THX in advance

#2

Have you done the Space Invaders Tutorial: http://www.cokeandcode.com/node/6?
This seem to cover the basics, but has a horrible (centered) layout: http://www.softlookup.com/tutorial/games/ch6.asp
Also take a look at this book: http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/ (most chapters are available online)

This is called a sprite sheet and is an easy way to manage your games resources. Usually you arrange the sprites in a way that forms a grid of equally sized rectangles, so you can “cut” the desired image out at runtime. Take a look at Slicks SpriteSheet class for an idea how this could look like: http://slick.cokeandcode.com/wiki/doku.php?id=sprite_sheets