I'd like to get a better handle on how people in the real world are handling their animation.
Do you load 1 large image and then draw different rectangles based on the animation frame?
Do you load X image files into an array and draw the item in the array based on the animation frame?
How do you handle having different lengths of animations for various sprites.
Say a character walking takes 4 - 8 frames, and the waves on the beach only take 2 - 3 frames. How would you handle that situation? See Below
Dim Waves(1) as Sprite
Dim Char(5) as Sprite
Sub Animate()
Frame += 1
Draw Char(Frame)
Draw Waves(Frame)
If Frame = 5 Then Frame = 0
End Sub
Obviously Waves would end up with an out of bounds error.
Or do you have your sprite worry about it's own animation, and not care about the frame at all. Having each sprite know its own animation loop?