Game character is moving too fast

Question

I am currently creating a Java 2D game within which I receive commands from the user to move the character up, down, left or right a certain amount of distance. I am currently using a for loop through the user inputs and pass the string to the Player class which will check if the user input string matches one of the direction to move the character. When all of this is executed it appears as though the player has teleported to the end location. Is there a way for the character to move certain amounts of pixels until it has reached the target location to make it seem as though the player is naturally moving to the location.

This is the movePlayer function which is used to loop through the JTextFields which contain the user's commands to move the player. The strings from each text field is passed into another function: inputListener.

public void movePlayer(){

    for (int i = 0; i < userTextInput.size(); i++) {
        inputListener(userTextInput.get(i).getText());
    }
} 

The inputListener checks if the strings entered by the user matches the movement type, and the initiates the appropriate method to move the character.

private void inputListener(String Input){

     if(Input.equals("up")){
         player.moveCharacterUp();

     }else if(Input.equals("down")){
         player.moveCharacterDown();

     }else if(Input.equals("left")){
         player.moveCharacterLeft();

     }else if(Input.equals("right")){
         player.moveCharacterRight();

     }

}

This is where the x and y position of the character is set according to the method run from inputListener

public void moveCharacterUp(){
    y -= moveSpeed;
} 

public void moveCharacterDown(){
    y += moveSpeed;
}

public void moveCharacterLeft(){
    x -= moveSpeed;
}

public void moveCharacterRight(){
    x += moveSpeed;
}

The run method for the Thread which I am using.

public void run(){

    init();

    long start;
    long elapsed;
    long wait;

    while(running){

        start = System.nanoTime();

        update();
        draw();
        drawToScreen();

        elapsed = System.nanoTime() - start;
        wait = targetTime - elapsed / 1000000;

        if(wait < 0) wait = 5;

        try{
            Thread.sleep(wait);

        }catch(Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

     }
    }

Answer 1

The way I have done this in the past is by creating a targetX and targetY.
I then increment x and y until they equal targetX and targetY.

int x = 0; //Character's x position
int y = 0; //Character's y position
int targetX = 0; //Character's target x position
int targetY = 0; //Character's target y position
int moveSpeed = 2; //the speed at which the character moves
int moveAmt = 20; //amount the character is set to move every time it is told to move

void setTarget(int targetX, int targetY) //sets targetX and targetY, doesn't need to be called at all
{
    this.targetX = targetX;
    this.targetY = targetY;
}

void moveCharacter(int x, int y) //moves the character, doesn't need to be called at all
{
    this.x = x;
    this.y = y;
}

void updatePosition() //initiates/continues movement, should be called every frame
{
    if(Input.equals("up")) {
         setTarget(targetX, targetY - moveAmt);

    } else if(Input.equals("down")) {
         setTarget(targetX, targetX + moveAmt);

    } else if(Input.equals("left")) {
         setTarget(targetX - moveAmt, targetX);

    } else if(Input.equals("right")) {
         setTarget(targetX + moveAmt, targetX);

    }

    if(y > targetY) {
         player.moveCharacter(x, y - moveSpeed);

    } else if(y < targetY) {
         player.moveCharacter(x, y + moveSpeed);

    } else if(x > targetX) {
         player.moveCharacter(x - moveSpeed, y);

    } else if(x < targetX) {
         player.moveCharacter(x + moveSpeed, y);

    }
}

Answer 2

Your program need to count time. That time value will be use to scale moveSpeed. Key is pressed and you fetch current time. When you are about to apply moveSpeed you have to fetch time once again and calculate difference with previous time. That difference will be your scale factor. Something like this:

private void inputListener(String Input){
   lastTime = getTime();
}

public void moveCharacterUp(){
   currTime = getTime();
   y -= moveSpeed * (currTime - lastTime)
   lastTime = currTime;
} 

Answer 3

The speed is set by the variable moveSpeed. This is probably set to a higher value than what you want, so try changing that.