[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 13 ■ Animating Your Action Figure States: Setting the Image States Based on KeyEvent Processing
Figure 13-7. Duplicate the nested if-else statement in .isLeft() structure, so InvinciBagel character runs both directions
The next thing that we’ll need to is to add some Java code to control the running speed of your InvinciBagel
sprite. We will do this using two Integer variables: one to serve as a framecounter and the other to hold the running
speed value, which we can change later on based on our vX (velocity along the X axis) variable to get a realistic match
between the speed the run cycle is animating at and the speed the sprite is being moved across the screen.
Controlling Run Cycle Speed: Setting Up Your Animation Throttle Program Logic
In order to be able to “throttle” our run cycle sprite animation to achieve different speeds, we need to introduce a
“counter” variable called framecounter, which will count up to a certain number of frames before we change a false
(sprite cel 1) animator value to true (sprite cel 2). We will also use a runningspeed variable, so that our animation
speed is not hard-coded, and exists in a variable that we can change later on. This allows us to have fine-tuned control
over the speed (realism) of this run-cycle animation. Declare these two Integer (int) variables at the top of the Bagel.
java class and initialize the framecounter variable to zero and set the runningspeed variable to a value of 6. Since both
the false (!animator) and true (animator) second-level if() structures will use this “count up to 6” variable, the math for
what we are doing would equate to 6+6=12, divided into the 60FPS pulse timing loop, means that we are slowing down
the unthrottled animation by 500% (five times, because 60/12=5). The variable declaration statements at the top of the
Bagel class should look like the following Java code, and are also shown in the middle of Figure 13-8:
int framecounter = 0;
int runningspeed = 6;
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