Create a waking animation through pictures and keypresses

[Prof_Ants]

So I was wondering how to change an image of character I've created depending on the key I've pressed?
I've got a firm grasp on the if love.keyboard.isDown("left") then x = x - (speed*dt) and I've defined my hero in the love.draw() function with love.graphics.draw(hero, x, y) but at the moment no matter which direction I send my "hero" his image stays the same (of course I've only defined one image at present).

My Ultimate going to to have a walking animation occuring when "right" is pressed but then he stands still when the "right" key is not pressed etc for all directions. All images have been created already.

[Prof_Ants]

I gave this a go to no avail:

Code: Select all

function love.load()

    if love.keyboard.isDown("a") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/11.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("d") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/5.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("s") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/fstand.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("w") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/1.png")
    end

function love.draw()

    love.graphics.draw(background)
    love.graphics.draw(hero, x, y)

end

[Nixola]

This

Code: Select all

    if love.keyboard.isDown("a") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/11.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("d") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/5.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("s") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/fstand.png")
    elseif love.keyboard.isDown("w") then
        hero = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/1.png")
    end

should go into love.update() or love.draw(), because love.load() is called only once, when you open the file

[Prof_Ants]

Well I'm stumped. I've just tried both. I'm a newb (of course lol), so any help will be appreciated

[kikito]

Noticed that you asked the same in StackOverflow. I've answered there, but copy-pasting my answer here:

You must understand how LÖVE works. It (very basically) does this:

Code: Select all

love.load()       -- invoke love.load just once, at the beginning
while true do     -- loop that repeats the following "forever" (until game ends)
  love.update(dt) --   call love.update() 
  love.draw()     --   call love.draw()
end

This schema is so frequent that the loop itself has a name - it's called The Game Loop.

Your code does't work because you are using love.load() as if it was part of the game loop, but it isn't. It's called at the beginning, during the first millisecond or so of your program, and never again.

You want to use love.load do load the images, and love.update to change them:

Code: Select all

function love.load()
  heroLeft  = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/11.png")
  heroRight = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/5.png")
  heroDown  = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/fstand.png")
  heroUp    = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/1.png")

  hero = heroLeft -- the player starts looking to the left
end

function love.update(dt)
  if     love.keyboard.isDown("a") then
    hero = heroLeft
  elseif love.keyboard.isDown("d") then
    hero = heroRight
  elseif love.keyboard.isDown("s") then
    hero = heroDown
  elseif love.keyboard.isDown("w") then
    hero = heroUp
  end
end

function love.draw()
  love.graphics.draw(background)
  love.graphics.draw(hero, x, y)
end

The code above has certain repetitiveness that can be factored out using tables, but I've left it simple on purpose.

You will also notice that I have included the dt parameter in the love.update function. This is important, since you will need it to make sure that animations work the same in all computers (the speed at which love.update is called depends on each computer, and dt allows you to cope with that)

Nevertheless, if you want to do animations, you will probably want to use this Animation Lib.

[Prof_Ants]

Thanks again. The code failed giving a "Incorrect paramater type: expected userdata....in function 'draw'" which makes me think animations should be what I should be looking into anyway. Might as well learn the CORRECT way rather than the wrong way when I'm only going to need to change my habits later.

Edit

I missed the

Code: Select all

 hero = heroLeft

*sigh*

[Prof_Ants]

I hope no one minds me asking loads of questions...

I'm hitting a new brick wall, I'm having trouble assigning animations to the main character. I've been trying to do this:

Code: Select all

function love.load()
    require("AnAL")
    local img  = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/heroanime.png")
    walking_up = newAnimation(img, 71, 100.5, 0.1, 3)

function love.update(dt)
    walking_up:update(dt)
    if love.keyboard.isDown("w") then
		y = y - (speed*dt)
		hero = walking_up
    end
function love.draw()
     love.graphics.draw(hero, x, y)

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[tentus]

Three problems. One, you should end functions with the keyword end.

Code: Select all

function love.load()
    require("AnAL")
    local img  = love.graphics.newImage("/hero/heroanime.png")
    walking_up = newAnimation(img, 71, 100.5, 0.1, 3)
end
function love.update(dt)
    walking_up:update(dt)
    if love.keyboard.isDown("w") then
		y = y - (speed*dt)
		hero = walking_up
    end
end
function love.draw()
     love.graphics.draw(hero, x, y)
end

Two, you're missing hero in love.load again. You should also define x, y, and speed in love.load.

Three, I don't think 100.5 is a valid frame height. One hundred and one half pixels? Half pixels are usually problematic.

[Prof_Ants]

I really should have mentioned they are all in there I was just trying to skim it down and share what parts I thought were relevant. The part I'm unclear on atm is assigning an animation to a direction. All animations function correctly when running independently when I debug.

[tentus]

Post what you've got and I'll see if I can spot it. It's not a problem to have a long code post.