Ok so here is the problem, I've got the cat to appear transparent but for some reason the back ground wont go over it so the instances of the cat stack on top of each other and block out the background. I think processing needs some work, but im sure there is a way around this. The other part that bugs me is that it doesn't even do it incorrectly consistently; some times a gray box, white, or even on occasion you can see the desktop or other windows.
everything you need to run the program is here, you may need to look to see what im talking about.

<code>
animal meow;
PImage outside, house, back, cat;

void setup()
{
 size(200, 150);

 outside = loadImage( "outside.png" );
 house = loadImage( "house.png" );
 cat = loadImage( "kitty.png" );
 back = outside;

 meow = new animal(cat, 0);
 
 frameRate(50);
}

void draw()
{
 background(0);
 meow.update();
 meow.draw();
}




class animal
{
 PImage img;
 int imgCol, imgRow, //animation, direction
     currentX, targetX, patience;
     
 animal (PImage img, int x)
 {
   this.img = img;
   currentX = x;
   patience = 1;
 }
 
 void update()
 {
   patience--;
   if ( patience == 0)
   {
     patience = int ( random(80, 110));
     targetX = int ( random(-65, 305));
     imgCol=30;
   }
   walk();
 }
 
 void draw()
 {
   image (back, -currentX, 10);
   copy (cat, imgCol, imgRow, 30, 30, 65, 95, 30, 30);
 }
 
 void walk()
 {
   imgCol = -imgCol + 30;
   
   if ( targetX < currentX )
   {
     currentX--;
     imgRow = 30;
   }
   else if ( targetX > currentX )
   {
     currentX++;
     imgRow = 0;
   }
   else
     imgCol = 60;
   println(imgCol);
 }
}

</code>

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0CEWGEDn3q21F8XMIuUUXg?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9BZNYLFYe4Z-kKXHHG1rtA?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tEcHR62zGhW0prc82LcEJA?feat=directlink

I'd much appreciate your help as i will need this knowledge for many projects i plan on doing and am in progress of making

Quote:
All suggestions are welcome...

What is your platform? Rendering bugs might be related to your OS, your graphics card or whatever. Processing is working quite fine for most of us.

I haven't fully understood what issue you have, but I see you use copy() to draw the image of the cat. In this function, "No alpha information is used in the process" so you loose transparency around the cat, if any.

the images should be working now

yes.

You may not be aware that both PhilLo and I answered your question.  image() will place your image with full transparency information.  copy() will copy the portion of the image you want, but ignore the alpha channel.  If you want your sprites to work as intended, I'd suggest splitting them into six .png files and preloading them into a PImage[] cat.  Or if you really need them on one sheet, I'd look into textures.

--Ben

Ah, you should have said it was about putting several sprites in the same image...
It is a useful and common practice. You can workaround the problem of copy() by using get() on an intermediary image:
Code:

 void draw() // The one of animal class
 {
   image(back, -currentX, 10);
   PImage curCat = cat.get(imgCol, imgRow, 30, 30);
   image(curCat, 65, 95, 30, 30);
 }