Sprite rotation... help someone just entering the fray of java 2D!

Question

Okay, so I'm basically having a crash course in the usage of sprites, and it seems to me the easiest way to rotate them is via AffineTransform.
Now, from what I understand, this is used to rotate an entire graphics context, but I don't want to rotate the entire thing, just a ball. Now to do this, I either need another method, or a way to draw a graphics context on another one, that is, have a ball be the entirety of a graphics context, and draw that on top of the graphics context I already have. Any help on performing this last action would be cool, or if anyone had a better suggestion, I would enjoy that as well.

Answer 1

This might help
package forums;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.GradientPaint;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.geom.AffineTransform;
import com.sun.awt.AWTUtilities;
public class SplashPortalPanel5 extends JPanel
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private static final char[] MESSAGE = "  SplashPortal.net".toCharArray();
    private static final double R90 = Math.toRadians(90);
    private static final double R_90 = Math.toRadians(-90);
    private AffineTransform cumalativeRotation = new AffineTransform();
    private double rotation = Math.toRadians(360.0 / MESSAGE.length);
    private Font font = new Font("Impact",Font.ITALIC,40);
    private final Timer timer = new Timer(1000/76, new ActionListener() {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            repaint();//just repaint
    public SplashPortalPanel5() {
      setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(600, 600));
      setOpaque(false);
    //This method is called when the panel is connected to a native
    //screen resource.  It's an indication we can now start painting.
    public void addNotify() {
        super.addNotify();
        timer.start();
    public void removeNotify() {
        super.removeNotify();
        timer.stop();
    private static final GradientPaint gradient = new GradientPaint(0F, 0F, Color.BLUE, 5F, 10F, Color.CYAN, true);
    private static final int x = 0, y = 0, w = 100, h = 100;
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
        g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
        g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
        g2.setFont(font);
        g2.translate( getWidth()/2, getHeight()/2 );
        cumalativeRotation.rotate(rotation/50);
        g2.transform( cumalativeRotation );
        for(int i = 0; i < MESSAGE.length; i++) {
            // fill the rectangle
            g2.translate(250, 0);
            g2.rotate(R90);
            g2.setColor(Color.BLACK);
            g2.fillRect(x,y,w,h);
            // draw the border
            g2.setColor(Color.WHITE);
            g2.drawRect(x,y,w,h);
            // draw the character
            g2.setPaint(gradient);
            g2.drawChars(MESSAGE,i, 1, x+30, y+50);
            g2.rotate(R_90);
            g2.translate(-250, 0);
            g2.rotate(rotation);
    public static void createAndShowSplashScreen() {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setUndecorated(true);
        frame.setContentPane(new SplashPortalPanel5());
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        AWTUtilities.setWindowOpaque(frame, false);
        //frame.setAlwaysOnTop(true);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                createAndShowSplashScreen();
}... not my code, but I did contribute "some stuff" ...