Question

So, basically I need to find a good way to “flip” a char array used for a sprite in order to make him/it look to the left and vice versa. Here is my array ->

WARRIOR = (

" " +         
 "!!!!!     " +        
 "!!oo! ^   " +
 "!!!!! ^   " +
 "##### ^   " +
 "#######   " +
 "#####     " +
 "** **     ").toCharArray();

The display routine looks like this:

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);
    for (int i = 0; i < WARRIOR.length; i++) {
        int x = (i - 1) % 10;
        int y = (i - 1) / 10;
        if (WARRIOR[i] == '!') {
            g.setColor(new Color(0, 0, 204));
            g.fillRect(x_pos + x * 5, y_pos + y * 5, 5, 5);
        }
        else if (WARRIOR[i] == 'o') {
            g.setColor(new Color(204, 0, 0));
            g.fillRect(x_pos + x * 5, y_pos + y * 5, 5, 5);
        }
        // other characters here...
    }
}​

Answer 1

I’d suggest having an alternate display routine to draw sprites backwards instead of storing a reversed copy of the sprite.

Try changing this line:

int x = (i - 1) % 10;

to this:

int x = 10 - (i - 1) % 10;

This should draw sprites backwards.

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Also, you may want to take a look at the XPM format, it is pretty similar to what you are doing.