[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 13 ■ Animating Your Action Figure States: Setting the Image States Based on KeyEvent Processing
}
framecounter=0;
} else { framecounter+=1; }
} else if(animator) {
spriteFrame.setImage(imageStates.get(2));
if(framecounter >= runningspeed) {
animator=false;
framecounter=0;
} else { framecounter+=1; }
}
Figure 13-12. Add if() statement logic to exclude processing of nested if-else hierarchy if down or up keys being pressed
The reason that I’m doing this is because when either the up or down key is being pressed, the jump (or fly) or
preparing to land sprite cel image is showing. For this reason, optimization dictates that I need to turn off all of the
“alternating between sprite cel 1 and sprite cel 2” processing code. I want to do this so that this constant processing
is not going on in memory and in the thread (CPU) when the imageStates(1) and imageStates(2) are not even being
used (displayed) inside of the spriteFrame ImageView “container.”
To achieve this optimization objective, I added a new level of evaluation to the outside of the second nested if()
loop. This is the level that contains all of the sprite cel changes (1 to 2 and back) using the animator, framecounter, and
runningspeed variables and related processing. This new more complex evaluation statement guarantees that all of
this run-cycle processing logic will not be executed if this the new condition is being met.
What this new condition says specifically, is that if the animator variable is false AND the up AND down keys
are both not being used (are false) then to process the rest of the logic, which switches between the two sprite image
states (as well as waiting a certain number of pulse events before each switch). What this means is that if either of the
up or down keys are being pressed (thus showing the fly or land sprite cel image state), none of the programming logic
past that point will be processed at all, saving CPU processing cycles for the many other things that we are going to be
adding into the game play that will need to use this “saved” processing overhead for other game play-related logic.
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