SKPhysicsJointPin pin position - ios

I'm trying to understand SKPhysicsJointPin a bit better, specifically the anchor point parameter.
I understand that the anchor point is the position in the parent node of the two physics bodies concerned. What I don't understand at which point in the participating bodies does the pin go through and if there is a way to control that.
To make myself clear, say I'm making a clock with hands so the pin should go in the middle of the circle but for the hands is should go through the edge. So how can you control that.
Thanks a bunch.

Documentation is pretty lacking for these. To use the clock reference, and since you obviously know the code, I'll give you the English breakdown:
add 2 clock hand sprites to the scene
set both anchor points on the clock hand sprites to (.5,0)
position both sprites at (100,100)
create 2 physics bodies, add them to each clock hand
create the SKPhysicsJointPin, use anchor point (100,100)
add the joint to the scene
You should in theory, now have 2 clock hands, able to spin via their own anchor points around the point in the scene at (100,100).

Related

Detecting collision on only one side of a rectangular physics body - Swift3

I am currently working on a 2D endless runner, written in Swift3 and using Spritekit.
Short question:
Is there a way to only check for collisions on the right side of my character's rectangular physics body?
More info:
The platform on which the character runs is made of puzzle pieces and the user builds upon it as the game progresses. The character progresses left to right, in respect to the background (which goes right to left).
I want the character to automatically jump when he collides with a piece on his right side. However, any pieces that the player puts to the right of him (same Y value as the character) is of the same class as the pieces underneath him.
So the same code that checks for collision between the character and pieces to his right, and make him jump, will also make him jump as long as the game detects collision between the character and the pieces under him.
I have not been able to find another problem like mine, since usually others' characters are colliding with objects of different classes from their ground class.
Thanks!
P.S. I have tried to make my character a SKSpriteNode with two physics bodies, but I could not find any helpful documentation. If it helps any, my character also performs a looping running animation--though I can't imagine that would harm anything.
You could achieve that by detecting collisions with your rectangle and then deciding whether the collision was with the side of your interest or not. Here is a discussion about how to do that. Good luck!
Have you tried adding a non visible sub node (e.g. feetNode) to your character's sprite node and giving that sub node the physics body (class) for floor contact ?
Depending on the rest of your logic, it may allow you to use a different physics class for your character have more flexibility in collision detection.
In fact, you could probably use that approach with several sub nodes in your character's sprite node and have multiple collision behaviours for the character depending on what hits it.
Once you obtain the contact point of the 2 bodies that are colliding, determine which body is the one that is colliding by checking the categorymasks and then check its CGPoints x position. This x position can be compared to the other body's x position to know exactly which side it is colliding from.
if Body A's x position > Body B's x position, Body A is on the right and if not, its on the left.
As simple as that.
Hope this helps!

Make a SCNNode drop using gravity?

I have a SceneKit setup and have one Sphere in it that is setup as a Dynamic body.
I am able to run the app and see the sphere drop on the static body floor.
What I am trying to do is setup the scene so the sfere initially does not drop.
Then when a function is run I want the sfere to drop.
what is the correct logic / steps to make the scene suddenly (maybe when a button is pressed or something) drop the sphere?
I have tried also to set the sphere to mass 0 and then set the mass to 100 but it does not cause the drop...
Mass doesn't control how fast something falls. This is true in the real world, but more so in simulations that take shortcuts instead of simulating every detail of real-world physics. (Sadly, iOS devices still don't have the CPU power to account for the rotating reference frame of the Earth, the Van der Waals attraction between your sphere and any body especially close to it, the strong force that keeps its triangles atoms together, etc etc.) In SceneKit, gravity is just a constant acceleration in a specific direction.
Setting mass to zero and switching it to something else interferes with the distinction between static/kinematic and dynamic bodies... so don't do that.
As #mnuages notes, you can add/remove the physics body from your sphere when you want it to be affected or unaffected by physics entirely.
But what if you want to keep the sphere's physics body for other reasons—such as allowing other bodies to collide with it even before you make it start falling? There are a few approaches you could use for that:
Set the sphere body's damping to 1.0.
Set the sphere body's velocityFactor to zero (at least in the direction of gravity).
Both of those will keep the sphere from moving when something else hits it. If you want the ball to get knocked around, but not be affected by gravity, the best thing to do might be to switch out scene gravity for physics fields:
Set scene.physicsWorld.gravity to SCNVector3Zero.
Add a SCNPhysicsField created with the linearGravityField constructor to your scene, and set its direction and strength to get the kind of gravity behavior you want.
Set the categoryBitMasks on both your sphere body and the gravity field such that the field affects other bodies but not the sphere.
Whichever of these methods you use, you can change them when you want to "turn gravity on" for the sphere: reduce the damping, reset the velocityFactor, or change the sphere's or the gravity field's categoryBitMask.
As of iOS 9, you can set the isAffectedByGravity property to false then flip the value to true to make the sphere drop: https://developer.apple.com/reference/scenekit/scnphysicsbody/1514738-isaffectedbygravity
setting a physics body to sphere only when you want to it to be affected by gravity should work.

SceneKit: PhysicsWorld relative to body

I have a ship that everything is centered around and everything moves relative to it. It is a first person shooter. Right now when I fire, and the ship speeds up, it catches up to the bullets. I would like the physics world to move relative to the ship's speed so that the bullet is essentially unaffected by ship speed.
The physics engine is doing the right thing, but not the right thing for my game.
I have other elements that move relative to the ship as it moves, which move correctly now, so don't want make ship stationary and move everything else in world around it. I don't see a direct way to do this maybe there is an indirect way? Perhaps I can manually take over the positioning of the bullets. I would like to use the other parts of the physics engine for doing collisions etc so don't want to completely manually do it, but will if that is the only option.
Anyone else have any suggestions?
It sounds like your bullets are receiving air friction. This is controlled by the physics bodies "damping" property. A value of 1.0 will make it static without movement. A value of 0 will allow it to move continuously without ever stoping. The default value is 0.1 as per the Apple documents. Assign your node like so to remove the damping(air friction)...
yourNode.physicsBody.damping = 0

Moving around the planet in sprite kit

I'm currently making a game where driving a moon lander across the terrain of alien planets. The lander is free moving so you can turn any direction you like.
I've got a camera centred on the player's vehicle and navigation is working well, however...
As the player approaches the horisontal sides (x) of the map I'd like the map to display continuously.
I've used a couple of different approaches so far; I've added an identical sprite as the map to the left of the map and created a method that moves the extended map to the right side if you approach that side instead, and I've also tested with two different extended maps, one for left and one for right. I've then setup physics for the extended maps and changed the landers position from one side of the map to the other as it collides with the extended maps.
My issue is that I'd like to have my enemies spawning and walking around the main map and as you approach the side you will of course not see the enemies on the other side of the map - you'd only see the extended map with no contents.
My preference would be for the world to "bend" so that as you approach the left edge you'd automatically see the right edge and vice versa. I have no idea whether this is even feasible so any suggestions are much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure I understand your question. Maybe this will further discussion, anyhow.
If you are looking for a scrolling behavior then I would have two backgrounds (or more if you want a wider scrolling field) and your method for swapping the tiles around to make the background feel continuous, use the "camera" tracking technique and shown in Apple's sprite kit demo to follow your player (which it sounds like you are doing). Then when aliens move offscreen in either direction relocate them in the same way that you would swap out your background tile(s) with something like position.x += widthOfBackgroundTile.

How would I build pool-cues / simplified pinball-style plungers with SpriteKit?

I'm working on a game in which the user should be able to trigger 'rods' that come out from the edge of the screen to displace elements on screen (balls). These projectiles roughly resemble pool-cues. Or perhaps pinball plungers, except that they start from the 'loaded' position (mostly offscreen), and when triggered, they eject out, then quickly retreat.
I'm unclear how I should build these with Sprite Kit.
The game uses the PhysicsEngine, and the onscreen balls should be effected both by gravity AND they should be displaced when they collide with the rods. However the rods should neither be effected by gravity, not displaced when they collide with the balls -- they should simply retreat regardless of whether they've made contact with the balls.
I realize I can set the affectedByGravity property for the rods. However because they will still displace slightly when they collide with the balls. How can I 'fix' or 'peg' them in place? Do I need to use an SKPhysicsSlidingJoint? If so, has anyone encountered any examples online? Is there a simpler way to do this?
A related physics engine, Box2D distinguishes static, kinematic, and dynamic bodies.
Kinematic bodies can move and will collide with other objects, but they are themselves not affected by dynamic bodies or forces like gravity. Thus, consider setting rod.dynamic = NO; but animate it with actions. See also here in the reference for SKPhysicsBody.

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