Hour 10. Making Things Move with Sprites

The previous hour mentioned that sprite animation is the predominant form of animation used in two-dimensional games . This hour moves from theory to practicality by showing you how to design and build an all-purpose sprite class that will allow you to incorporate sprite animation into any program. You will end up reusing the Sprite class developed in this hour in every program example and game throughout the remainder of the book, so it's safe to say that it represents one of the most significant programming milestones in the book. Fortunately, the Sprite class is not very complex, and it serves as a great example of how sprite animation doesn't have to be complex. In fact, once you create the Sprite class, sprite animation becomes extremely straightforward to use.

In this hour, you'll learn:

How sprites are used in games
How to design a sprite class
What it takes to develop a sprite class
How to use sprite animation in the context of a real program