Thanks for reading,
Mike

I don’t understand sorry, where do the default poses actually go? My sprite is working fine, apart from stopping it animating when in a stationary postition. Have followed both sets of instructions, but neither have worked. I put in an “idle” keyframe and the else statement and it worked in one direction, but then stopped the animation completely. When I put the else statement after all 4 directions, my sprite no longer walked, just slid. All I need is a push towards how to stop animating the sprite when the keys are not pressed.
Great tut by the way, best one on the web!

In this Flash tutorial, I will show you how to move a game character using the arrow keys, and have the character face in the direction that he is moving….

very helpful..

it works perfectly now:mrgreen:

That’s awesome man!
nice tutorial but…

The character is moving and all but the animation wont change even in the file i downloaded…

i use Adobe flash CS4
and this is the code in the downloaded file:

// when the clip enters the frame, perform the code between the curly brackets
onClipEvent(enterFrame){

// if the right arrow key is pressed, perform the code between the curly brackets
if(Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)){
// move this clip 5 pixels to the right
this._x += 5;
// go to and stop on the frame labeled “right”
this.gotoAndStop(“right”);
}

// the the left arrow key is pressed, perform the code between the curly brackets
if(Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)){
// move this clip 5 pixels to the left
this._x -= 5;
// go to and stop on the frame labeled “left”
this.gotoAndStop(“left”);
}

// if the up arrow is pressed, perform the code between the curly brackets
if(Key.isDown(Key.UP)){
// move this clip 5 pixels up
this._y -= 5;
// go to and stop on the frame labeled “up”
this.gotoAndStop(“up”);
}

// if the down arrow is pressed, perfrom the code between the curly brackets
if(Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)){
// move this clip 5 pixels down
this._y += 5;
// go to and stop on the frame labeled “down”
this.gotoAndStop(“down”);
}

// closes the on clip event code
}

And this is the code in my file:

onClipEvent(enterFrame){
if(Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)){
this._x += 5;
this.gotoAndStop(“right”);
}

if(Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)){
this._x -= 5;
this.gotoAndStop(“left”);
}

if(Key.isDown(Key.UP)){
this._y -= 5;
this.gotoAndStop(“up”);
}

if(Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)){
this._y += 5;
this.gotoAndStop(“down”);
}

}

Yes, you are right, if you are having trouble, you can reference the frame number rather than naming the frame. However it is my recommendation to do this only as a trouble shooting measure. It is better practice to use frame labels. While it might be a little tougher to remember what you labeled things, and there is more risk of mistyping, using frame labels makes for a more flexible .fla. If you wanted to go in and add frames to the timeline, or move the frame at all, using labels alllows you to do this without having to go back and change the code.

Of course it really all comes down to personal preference, but that’s my two cents.

- Mike

if(Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)){
this._x -= 5;
this.gotoAndStop(”left”);
}

if(Key.isDown(Key.UP)){
this._y -= 5;
this.gotoAndStop(”up”);
}

if(Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)){
this._y += 5;
this.gotoAndStop(”down”);
}

}
you can see it says this.gotoAndStop(“down”) well it might not work for you because he has named hes frames to down left right.

so to fix this just replace up with like this.gotoAndStop(5);
then that should work just thought i point this out for noobs