in past, have made own sprite sheets, , made them transparent. see sprite sheets pinkish color background. how key out in game?
also better? using transparent .png file? or having solid background color?
in case wondering, use bufferedimage class , getsubimage.
there's typically 3 ways make sprites transparent, either using separate alpha channel, using separate bit mask, or using transparent color. latter used indexed color, as simple replacing color of 1 of indexes (the 1 pink color in case) transparency.
the advantage see technique preserving memory. haven't made many games, there might other reasons doing this.. ;-)
