What is a Sample? (Samplemodel - BufferedImage)

So, I’m trying to create some kind of pixel-perfect collision for a 2D game (as I can’t think of any other good way of creating exact or close to exact hitboxes for hand-drawn sprites).

To this I do of course need to learn a bit about how images work, where and how the data is stored etc. I’ve been trying to read and learn about this in the java docs, reading up on the BufferedImage and SampleModel to name a few. I’ve also been looking through tutorials and guides I’ve found. While everything is somewhat confusing, lots of things, atleast when it comes to the SampleModel, seems to revolve around “samples” that contain information about pixels in the picture.

However, I do not know at all how these samples work or how I can use them. Google is not being very helpful due to “sample” apparently being a very commonly used term. Therefore, could someone explain to me what these “samples” are, or link me to some good site on the matter? =)

If you go on youtube to: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheChernoProject see his game programming series, if you are up to understanding the jargon, well done you can learn it, if not even then you can still copy his code and it will work. That’s how I started and now I make my own things with a lot of what he said in mind.

Well, while not exactly what I asked for, this certainly does seem interesting. I’ll be watching his videos a bit to see what I can learn.

Thanks!