How to play both Idle and running animation without flickering effect?!

Chestosneako Inc

So I'm working on a Platform game where I am moving my character left and right as well as jumping. I've got the running animation playing when I move left/right and Idle animation when I stand still, which is working fine. However, the only issue I'm having here is that when I move left and right I keep seeing that the Idle animation keeps playing over it and creates a flickering effect which ruins the running animation. I was wondering if there was a way to stop the Idle animation images from playing and only allow the running animation until I stay still. When jumping the jump animation plays perfectly but it's always a problem with moving left/right.
I've done everything I could but I'm not getting the results I'm looking for. If there's anything I did wrong that should be corrected, I'd like to know so that I can have these animations play correctly!!

Here's a demonstration of the issue I'm having:

Here are two screenshots of my settings if it helps too:

Settings for running animation:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-lJpxbDBNVoTVlXcEdWVlBuZ2c

Settings for Idle Animation:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-lJpxbDBNVoY2tIOXRaWTNWTHM

Any insight on this that will help fix this and make my animation run smoothly is appreciated. Thanks!!

Hopscotch

@kingofhackers101@gmail.com welcome to the forum!

As you rightly noticed, when running, both the "not jumping/thus idle" and the "running" conditions are true, making their animations overlap.

**Simple **fix would be to nest the conditions:

Rule: If Right pressed
         Run right animation
else
         Rule: If Left pressed
                  Run left animation
         else
                  Rule: If Jump pressed
                           Jump animation
                  else
                           Idle animation
                  end rule
         end rule
end rule

But, maybe look at some tutorial series on doing platformer movement, e.g.

Chestosneako Inc

@Hopscotch said:
@kingofhackers101@gmail.com welcome to the forum!

As you rightly noticed, when running, both the "not jumping/thus idle" and the "running" conditions are true, making their animations overlap.

**Simple **fix would be to nest the conditions:

Rule: If Right pressed
         Run right animation
else
         Rule: If Left pressed
                  Run left animation
         else
                  Rule: If Jump pressed
                           Jump animation
                  else
                           Idle animation
                  end rule
         end rule
end rule

But, maybe look at some tutorial series on doing platformer movement, e.g.

The video didn't help with results I was going for, but I followed the settings you provided me in text and I was finally able to make the running animation play smoothly for both sides without looking glitchy. BUT... I now have developed another issue!!!

My idle animation isn't animating this time when I stay still and whenever I "Tap" the space bar to jump the Jumping animation doesn't play the entire frames UNLESS I "Hold" the space bar, it just cuts in the middle after I release it only when tapping. I also used to jump while running back and forth but now I can't do that either, I can only jump while I'm Idle but not when I'm running. I need some help on how to fix this if you know what else I should do next.

I will show you the changes I made according to what you demonstrated me in your last post:

RULE: Receives a key press: right is: UP
Receives a key press: left is: UP
Receives a key press: jump is: UP

DO: Change Attribute: self.motion.linearVelocityX - To: 0
Change Attribute: game.direction - To: null

ELSE:
Rule: Receives a key press: right is: DOWN

DO: Change Attribute: self.graphics.flipHorizontally - To: false
Constrain Attribute: self.motion.linearVelocity.x - To: 250
Change Attribute: game.direction - To: right
Run right animation
ELSE:
Rule: Receives a key press: left is: DOWN

DO: Change Attribute: self.graphics.flipHorizontally - To: true
Constrain Attribute: self.motion.linearVelocity.x - To: -250
Change Attribute: game.direction - To: left
Run Left animation
ELSE:
Rule: Receives a key press: Space is: DOWN
IF: self.jumpCount > 0

DO: Change Attribute: self.jumping - To: true
Change Attribute: self.jumpCount - To: self.jumpCount-1
Change Attribute: self.motion.linearVelocity.y - To: 656
Jumping animation
ELSE:

IDLE animation

end rule

Chestosneako Inc

And here is another rule I have with my character as well:

Rule:
IF: actor overlaps or collides with: actor with tag - Solid

DO: Change attribute: self.jumping - To: false
Change attribute: self.jumpCount - To: self.jumps
ELSE:
Change attribute: self.jumping - To: true

end rule

Hopscotch

@Chestosneako Inc

That is why I said watch the tutorial series.

Good movement with animation is a bit more complicated, both to control the correct animation and also (as you have seen) to let the animation continue while player is in a certain state.

This means that one ideally works with game states, stored in attributes, to separate the key presses from the actual behavior.

I will point you to another series of tutorials to look at which is probably closer to what you want to achieve. They are quite a bit more complex, but will give you much more control.