title: Java 2D game camera without scrolling the world
body: <p>I've just finished a month long project of building a very complex map / world editor for a 2D tile rpg type game. Now I'm at the point where I'd like to actually play the game and am in the process of creating the runtime implementation of the game using the maps, characters, and other things that were generated through the map editor. I know almost exactly what I am doing, aside from the camera. I cannot think of a way to make the camera work in a way similar to games like zelda(gameboy) (where the camera is fixed on the character) without scrolling the (x,y) values of every sprite and tile in my game everytime the player moves. I've looked into some game engines but I'm not convinced that is what I need, though I'm very willing to be wrong on that assumption. The entire game is done with images, there are no rendered shapes, which leads me to believe that I do not need to mess around with openGL to make the camera work as desired. Could anyone suggest a way to implement a camera without using openGL? I'm not against using openGL but I'd rather not learn it if I dont need to as I am crunched for time already with other projects. Thank you for the suggestions.</p>