Rain animation help

[Bestsanchez]

Sorry no code because I attempted and it was a trainwreck so i'm back to square one. I'm just trying to create randomized rain on a jpanel by drawing lines about 4 pixels long using a Timer and actionPerformed() to do it. There's already stuff drawn on the panel so some of my thoughts are: on the same panel?, on a transparent panel on top of it?, something with an array?, use Math.random()?(I am), create lots of raindrop objects?(failed that route). I'm just looking for some suggestions or pointers in the right direction, thanks.

[camickr]

You are on the right track.

Use a Swing Timer to schedule the animation. In the paintComponent() code you will probably need an ArrayList of raindrop objects that you want to paint. When the Timer fires you just invoke repaint() on the panel. Then the custom painting code will loop through the ArrayList of raindrops.

[Bestsanchez]

Never done an ArrayList before, time to learn haha.