Run one cycle of animation when button is pressed in libgdx

Question

I am looking for a way to run my animation a complete cycle when a button is pressed. The animation runs as long as the button is pressed but the animation takes a second to play so it becomes too short. I would like to have it played through once, even if the button only was pressed very fast.

It's a character's slash with the knife and it needs to be one complete cycle, I just don't get how to do this.

Anyone has an idea on how I could do this in a better way?

The specific code is now inside render():

 if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Input.Keys.SPACE)) {
        if(direction == HEADING.NORTH) {
            animation = knifeslashnorth;
        } else if (direction == HEADING.WEST) {
            animation = knifeslashwest;
        } else if(direction == HEADING.EAST) {
            animation = knifeslasheast;
        } else if(direction == HEADING.SOUTH) {
            animation = knifeslashsouth;
        }
    }

Answer 1

I think it will work if you combine your input listener with:

animation.isAnimationFinished(stateTime);

While playing animation ignore attack input and let it just continue playing. When the animation finishes you can respond again and start a new animation by reseting the stateTime.

But I would also have in mind that the player can move meanwhile and there you have 2 options:

• Allow movement and cancel animation when direction changes.
• Also ignore directional changing input until animation finishes.

I hope it helps!