SCNLight cast shadow in all direction - ios

Suppose we have a room where the lamp is right in the middle of the room, both vertically and horizontally. How can it cast shadows in all directions? Is there anyway to fake it? I have objects that move. SCNLightTypeSpot can cast shadows in a cone, but that doesn't work in this situation.

Your best bet it to have multiple lights.
As Toyos said, a light that shines in every direction is an omni light, but considering the shadow rendering technique used (pretty much, a camera).
If you are comfortable with OpenGL, you could implement it easily. There a re resources online on how to approach it such as this GPUGems article about cubemaps or this more recent paper for a new technique using paraboloids.
You could also suggest these to Apple engineers using the bug reporter! I'm sure a lot of games and applications would benefit from Omnidirectional shadows.

What you would need is an omni light that supports casting shadows. As the documentation of "castsShadows" says, this is currently not supported by omni lights. You should file a bug request to Apple.

Related

AR.js Custom Markers

I am new to WebAR, but I have experience with building AR scenes with Unity3D and software such as Vuforia and 8thWall.
I have a question with the markers with AR.js. Why are they stuck with the thick black border? Is the software not able to just recognize a unique image like how Vuforia and Wikitude works? I apologize for how naive I may be when it comes to WebAR, however, I see this as an issue for the adoption rate of this technology if developers cannot use truly custom images and patterns. Is there a solution available that I may have missed somewhere? What happens if someone deletes/erases the big black border on the marker? Does it still work?
Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this!
Ar.js uses artoolkit and therefore is marker based. If you want to use it, there is not much you can do about it. Still You can have unique images inside the black box but not much else.
Worth mentioning, it is possible to make the borders thinner, there's even a branch - work in progress worth looking into.
Aframe-argon tried integrating aframe and vuforia, but i'm not sure if it's up to date.

Add sunflare kind of lighting effect on image

I am looking for sunflare kind of lighting effect on Image. In my case light source is bulb instead of Sun. And I understand that changing light source changes rays effect and even different type of bulb produces different type of light beams.
Here is an example of focus light : http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/focus-light/
I have looked into standard photo filters and OpenCV but we didn't find something obvious. I am looking for approach and direction to achieve it.
My knowledge is limited to iOS business apps only. I have heard only name of frameworks like OpenGL,SceneKit and MetalKit.So, I would prefer to have solution which fits into my knowledge stack but yes I would love to know all possible solutions.
Let me know if you want me to explain more.
Any help would be appreciated.

How to check intersection of two images that aren't rectangular?

New user to the site, but I have used it in the past so I felt it best to ask my question here, for the best chance of getting a response.
What I'm dealing with is one object, this being the sprite for my latest app, which I need to check for when it comes in to contact with another object, in this case, a tunnel which will curve.
Now, I'm aware of CGRectIntersectsRect, however I can't see that being helpful, as if I've got 2 UIImages, that being the top and bottom of a "mountain", and said pieces curving, there's no doubt that the sprite would touch the "rectangle".
What I need is something to trigger when the sprite hits the actual wall, however my limited knowledge of Objective-C isn't helping my case.
I imagine someone out there will know what I can do to resolve this, as for all I know it could be a simple solution.
Thank you in advance everyone!
First, I'd probably not build these basic pieces yourself. For iOS 7, you can use SpriteKit, which is built-in. If you want to support older versions of iOS, look at cocos2d (it's good for iOS 7, too).
But to the question, one approach for detecting arbitrary overlaps is to draw both objects into a buffer and check if there are any overlapping pixels (for instance, by drawing one in in pure red, and another in pure green, and then looking for pixels that have both). For a discussion of how to do this kind of thing in Core Graphics, see Clipping a CGRect to a CGPath, which provides sample code for the simplest version (checking for the intersection of a rectangle and curve), but the same approach can be used more generally. Note that this drawing can get expensive if you're doing it constantly, so usually you first check whether the bounding rectangles overlap. That tells you whether it's even worth the trouble to look closer.
But first I'd look at SpriteKit.

Cocos2D + Box2D Editor?

I want to develop an Angry Birds style game (more for learning purpose), so I am digging into Cocos2D + Box2D and after having done a few test all by code I am wondering which tool can I use to design level easier ?
A bit of google pointed me out Tiled or R.U.B.E. but I am not really sure if it's what I need. Tiled seem to be more designed for tiled game like a plat-former and I don't really know about R.U.B.E.
What I'd like to do is being able to place my body manually in a scene, set their physic property and so...
Which tool would you recommend for this kind of level design ?
Thank in advance.
I advise you to download/buy LevelHelper/SpriteHelper, they have helped me a lot when I was a novice with box2d. I think it's just what you need, once you learn the basics then you can go forward freely without them. In addition now there's also one or more tutorials on the Ray Wenderlich site that will help you even more like this (The softwares are not free, but in my opinion they worth their price)

How should I do this (Game)?

Right now I have coded about 80% of my game and the remaining 20% is the actual game part of it. I need to know how I should go upon actually making the game part.
Pretty much it will be somewhat similar to Doodle Jump. There will be gravity, the accelerometer, and a spawn system for platforms. I need to know if I should use UIKit or Cocos2D for this.
I know I can do gravity and use the accelerometer easily using UIKit but I am worried about the platform part. My 'Doodle Jump character' is not a regular square or rectangle so should I just crop it as best I can? The reason I am worried is because say the character falls on a platform, so his body could be a little off since CGRectIntersectsRect does not have pixel collision detection, so do you think it is fine the way it is?
If you need more info or aren't sure what I am trying to do, just let me know. In the end I just need to know if I should use Cocos2D or UIKit.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Thanks!
My answer would be that, while you may be able to develop the game in UIKit, my suspiction is that it will be better in the long run to do it in Cocos2D. Not only will you have tools which are better for doing stuff like collision detection, you can also use a Physics Engine to handle the gravity and things like that. Basically, Cocos2d was made to do exactly the kinds of things you want to do, and UIKit wasn't...it was made for user interfaces.
Still, the collision detection you do will, mostly likely, not need to be down the level of individual pixels. One rectangle might be enough, or perhaps you can use several to get more accuracy. So can you pull it off in UIKit...maybe, but I bet your game will turnout better overall if you use Cocos2d.

Resources