Java ball object doesn't bounce off of drawn rectangles like it's supposed to.

Question

Sorry for the awful title. The purpose of the Java applet is as such: A ball is bouncing around the screen. The size and speed of this ball can be changed via scrollbars. The user can press and drag the mouse on the screen to draw rectangles. The ball will bounce off of these rectangles as well. The bounds of these rectangles are stored in a vector. When a rectangle is clicked, it (and all other rectangles at that point) are removed from the vector (and the screen).

The problem I'm having is two-fold: One, when I click a rectangle to remove it, it doesn't get removed, but that can be solved later.

Two: The ball doesn't bounce off of the rectangles like it's supposed to. When I draw a rectangle in either the same row or column as the ball, the ball bounces around inside of a tiny rectangle, like it's stuck.

Here's my code to detect if the ball is hitting the boundaries of either the applet or any of the rectangles:

  public void move()
  {
    //if it will hit the right or left boundary, flip the x direction and set it
    if (loc.x+size >= boundx || loc.x <= 0)
    { dx *= -1; }
    //if it will hit the top or bottom boundray, flip the y direction and set it
    if (loc.y+size >= boundy || loc.y <= 0)
    { dy *= -1; }


    for (int i = 0; i < r.size(); i++)
    {

      temp = new Rectangle(r.elementAt(i));
      int rx = temp.x;
      int ry = temp.y;
      int rh = temp.height;
      int rw = temp.width;
      //If the ball hits either side of the rectangle, change the x direction
      if((loc.x > rx && loc.x > ry && loc.x < (ry + rh))||(loc.x < (rx + rw) && loc.x > rx && loc.x <(ry + rh)))
        {dx *= -1;}
      //If the ball hits either the top or bottom, change the y direction
      if((loc.y > ry && loc.y > rx && loc.y < (rx + rw))||(loc.y < (ry + rh) && loc.y > ry && loc.y <(rx + rw)))
        {dy *= -1;}
    }
    //Increment or decrement the location of the ball based on the X and Y directions.
    loc.x += dx;
    loc.y += dy;
  }

If you want to view the code in its entirety, it's here: http://ideone.com/R1hpBx

Thanks in advance for all the wonderful help.

Sieve

(Assuming this is homework) Who the heck still teaches, or does anything at all, with Java applets? >_> – Reopen

More questions the answers, why for (int i = 0; i < r.size(); i++)? You could use for (Rectangle rect : r) instead, as you're not using i for any other reasons...Why temp = new Rectangle(r.elementAt(i))? Why not just get the reference inside the Vetcor? Are you changing it? Is there something wrong with Rectangle#contains or Rectangle#intersects? – Beheld

@Beheld To answer in order... No real reason not to use a for each loop like that, it does make more sense in this context. As for contains/intersects, I wasn't 100% sure how that would work in this context. On first contact, would the edge pixels equal each other or would there be a one pixel overlap? Or does it not matter? – Sieve

@AlexKibler as for intersects or contains, I'd be testing these to see if they will at least produce a positive hit result. If they do hit. I'd be making sure that the ball is moved to a safe position first, then the direction is changed (ie if you hit the right side, make sure the ball is now resting on the right side and not within the rectangle) – Beheld

For using intersects (because I want to catch the ball as soon as it comes in contact, so contains would be unnecessary), how can I tell which side of the rectangle it hit? For example, if the ball hits the top or the bottom, it needs to change its Y direction, and if it hits the left or right, it needs to change its X direction. – Sieve

Ask the hard questions ;) - I've being playing around with Rectangle#outcode, it's not perfect, but it's not bad either – Beheld

Answer 1

I finally found a edge detection system I like...

Basically, the magic happens here...

// Detect if we collided with any one (collision is the rectangle, bounds is us)
if (collision.intersects(bounds)) {
    // Determine the intersect of the collision...
    insect = collision.intersection(bounds);

    // Flags...
    boolean vertical = false;
    boolean horizontal = false;
    boolean isLeft = false;
    boolean isTop = false;

    // Left side...
    if (insect.x == collision.x) {
        horizontal = true;
        isLeft = true;
    // Right side
    } else if (insect.x + insect.width == collision.x + collision.width) {
        horizontal = true;
    }
    // Top
    if (insect.y == collision.y) {
        vertical = true;
        isTop = true;
    // Bottom
    } else if (insect.y + insect.height == collision.y + collision.height) {
        vertical = true;
    }

    // Technically, we can really only collide with a single edge...more or less
    if (horizontal && vertical) {
        // Basically, we try and give precedence to the longer edge...
        if (insect.width > insect.height) {
            horizontal = false;
        } else {
            vertical = false;
        }
    }

    // We collided with a horizontal side...
    if (horizontal) {
        dx *= -1;
        // Move the ball to the approriate edge so we don't get caught...
        if (isLeft) {
            bounds.x = collision.x - bounds.width;
        } else {
            bounds.x = collision.x + collision.width;
        }
    // We collided with a vertical side...
    } else if (vertical) {
        dy *= -1;
        // Move the ball to the approriate edge so we don't get caught...
        if (isTop) {
            bounds.y = collision.y - bounds.height;
        } else {
            bounds.y = collision.y + collision.height;
        }
    }

}

Now, I only have a single obstacle, but I doubt it would take much effort to get it working with a series of obstacles... ;)

public class TestBouncingBall {

    private Rectangle insect;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new TestBouncingBall();
    }

    public TestBouncingBall() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException ex) {
                } catch (InstantiationException ex) {
                } catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
                } catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
                }

                JFrame frame = new JFrame();
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
                frame.add(new BallPane());
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }

    public class BallPane extends JLayeredPane {

        private Ball ball;
        private Timer timer;
        private Rectangle world;

        public BallPane() {

//            world = new Rectangle(random(400), random(400), random(100), random(100));
            world = new Rectangle(100, 100, 200, 200);

            ball = new Ball();
            ball.setSize(ball.getPreferredSize());
            ball.setLocation(10, 10);

            add(ball);

            timer = new Timer(16, new ActionListener() {
                @Override
                public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    ball.move(getBounds(), world);
                    invalidate();
                    repaint();
                }
            });
            timer.setRepeats(true);
            timer.setCoalesce(true);
            timer.start();

        }

        protected int random(int max) {

            return (int) Math.round(Math.random() * max);

        }

        @Override
        public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
            return new Dimension(400, 400);
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g.create();
            g2d.setColor(Color.GRAY);
            g2d.fill(world);
            if (insect != null) {
                g2d.setColor(Color.RED);
                g2d.fill(insect);
            }
            g2d.dispose();
        }
    }

    public class Ball extends JPanel {

        public int maxSpeed = 10;
        private BufferedImage beachBall;
        private int dx = 10 - (int)Math.round(Math.random() * (maxSpeed * 2)) + 1;
        private int dy = 10 - (int)Math.round(Math.random() * (maxSpeed * 2)) + 1;
        private int spin = 20;
        private int rotation = 0;

        public Ball() {
            try {
                beachBall = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResource("/ball.png"));
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
            setOpaque(false);
        }

        @Override
        public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
            Dimension size = beachBall == null ? new Dimension(48, 48) : new Dimension(beachBall.getWidth(), beachBall.getHeight());
            size.width += 4;
            size.height += 4;
            return size;
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            if (beachBall != null) {
                Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g.create();
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_QUALITY);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_COLOR_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_QUALITY);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_DITHERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_DITHER_ENABLE);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS, RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY);
                g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_STROKE_CONTROL, RenderingHints.VALUE_STROKE_PURE);

                int x = (getWidth() - beachBall.getWidth()) / 2;
                int y = (getHeight() - beachBall.getHeight()) / 2;
                AffineTransform transform = g2d.getTransform();
                AffineTransform at = new AffineTransform();
                at.translate(getX(), getY());
                at.rotate(Math.toRadians(rotation), getWidth() / 2, getHeight() / 2);
                g2d.setTransform(at);
                g2d.drawImage(beachBall, x, y, this);
                g2d.setTransform(transform);
                g2d.dispose();
            }
        }

        public void move(Rectangle world, Rectangle collision) {
            Rectangle bounds = getBounds();
            bounds.x += dx;
            bounds.y += dy;

            if (bounds.x < 0) {
                bounds.x = 0;
                dx *= -1;
            }
            if (bounds.y < 0) {
                bounds.y = 0;
                dy *= -1;
            }
            if (bounds.x + bounds.width > world.width) {
                bounds.x = world.width - bounds.width;
                dx *= -1;
            }
            if (bounds.y + bounds.height > world.height) {
                bounds.y = world.height - bounds.height;
                dy *= -1;
            }

            if (collision.intersects(bounds)) {
                insect = collision.intersection(bounds);

                boolean vertical = false;
                boolean horizontal = false;
                boolean isLeft = false;
                boolean isTop = false;

                if (insect.x == collision.x) {
                    horizontal = true;
                    isLeft = true;
                } else if (insect.x + insect.width == collision.x + collision.width) {
                    horizontal = true;
                }
                if (insect.y == collision.y) {
                    vertical = true;
                    isTop = true;
                } else if (insect.y + insect.height == collision.y + collision.height) {
                    vertical = true;
                }

                if (horizontal && vertical) {
                    if (insect.width > insect.height) {
                        horizontal = false;
                    } else {
                        vertical = false;
                    }
                }

                System.out.println("v = " + vertical + "; h = " + horizontal);

                if (horizontal) {
                    dx *= -1;
                    if (isLeft) {
                        bounds.x = collision.x - bounds.width;
                    } else {
                        bounds.x = collision.x + collision.width;
                    }
                } else if (vertical) {
                    dy *= -1;
                    if (isTop) {
                        bounds.y = collision.y - bounds.height;
                    } else {
                        bounds.y = collision.y + collision.height;
                    }
                }

            }

            rotation += spin;

            setBounds(bounds);
            repaint();

        }
    }
}

Beheld

Holy crap! It's going to take me a while to implement this, but your solution looks absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for taking the time to figure this out. – Sieve

Worry about the collision stuff, the rest is just me having fun ;). The example will also render the "hit" point, which I thought was a nice touch for testing ;) – Beheld

Yeah, that's really cool. I'll definitely be referring to this in the future. It's extremely useful. Your answers never fail to impress me. – Sieve

I was pretty impressed myself :P – Beheld