Is there a simple way to do a bunch of 2d particle images using core animation like the star particle animation in Draw Something?
Particle animation in Draw Something
I found this link which get's me 90% of the way there. It shows how to emit particles using UIImage which is just what I need. I just need some help tweaking the particles so they spew out like the Draw Something button and not like their fire example and I want to randomize the colors of the particles and make them glow.
http://www.raywenderlich.com/6063/uikit-particle-systems-in-ios-5-tutorial
Okay, just found this which got me the rest of the controls I wanted. The variable I was looking for on the emitters was yAccelleration. Set it to a positive number to make it go down.
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/Fireworks/Listings/AppController_m.html
Hope this helps someone else!
Related
Quick diagrams! I'm trying to implement this:
I have this working almost 100% currently (though this is a slightly different stage of the animation):
Everything looks good minus the fade effects at the end of the stroke. Is that possible using a simple CGPath? I'm animating strokeStart and strokeEnd to get the current effect. I've tried using CAGradientLayer as a mask on the layer, but that adds a gradient over the entire layer, not just the ends. Overriding drawRect isn't possible since I'm doing this dynamically with animations.
Any thoughts about how to achieve this effect? I have no idea which direction to go.
Depending on how important opacity is and how complex the rest of the animation is, one option would be to make two blurred tail objects that follow the ends of the path as it is animating.
Roundabout solution, sorry I can't think of another versatile way!
I have 2 SKSpriteNode objects, and I want to crossfade them.
One of the easiest way is to create a fadeOut SKAction and a fadeIn SKAction, and apply them to the SKSpriteNode objects. But the problem of this approach is that during the action both of them have the alpha under 1.0, which looks not so good.
For example, I'd like to dissolve the red square SKNode to a green round SKNode
If just fade out the red square and fade in the green round during the action it'll look like this
So you can see background through these 2 objects. I hope to dissolve these 2 objects like this:
In UIKit I can use UIView.transitionWithView but in SpriteKit I only found a similar method for presenting scenes (SKViewObject.presentScene: transition:). So is there anyway to make a dissolve transition for SKNodes?
There's little you can about the background coming through when adjusting the alpha settings on both nodes. A possible hack could be to temporarily insert a solid node in front of your background but behind both other nodes until the action is done. At which point you remove it.
The node should be in the shape of both nodes cross-section (pardon the sloppy artwork on my part):
I searched a lot for this question and I nearly decided to use a shader to do this kind of dissolve (since you can directly edit the pixel in a shader), but then I found that there's an unusual way to solve this problem. It may not be useful for every situation, but if your background doesn't do things like scroll or zoom, this approach may be the easiest. In simple words, just create a screenshot for the current screen and display it at the top, then change your node to the sprite you need, and at last fade out the screenshot you took.
So at first you have to make sure all the nodes are in the correct node tree. Then use SKViewObject.textureFromNode(rootNode) to create the screenshot, make a sprite node from this texture, and add it to your screen. Then, you can create the fade out SKAction to fade out this screenshot sprite. You may also remove it when the action ends.
Using this approach, during the fade out the screen will just look like this:
I'm trying to do a menu like the one that "Contre Jour" game has, with 3 elements spinning in a circle when user drags left and right. I'm using CALayers with CATransforms to position them in a 3d spinning wheel (no problem so far).
I need a way (maybe with NSTimers?) to calculate in-between values, because CoreAnimation just interpolates values, but if you NSLog them, it's just gonna show the start and the end, or just the end. I need all the in-between values, I need to snap the wheel movement when I release the finger (touches ends)in one position (there are 3 elements, each one shoud be at 120 degrees.
My guess and am quite sure I'm correct is that they are using a game engine such as Unity3D or Cocos2D or any other of the many to manage their sprites, animations, textures, physics and basically everything. Trying to replicate it outside of game engine will most likely result in crummy performance and a lot of hair pulling. I would suggest looking into a dedicated game engine and give it a shot there.
I am not sure I understand exactly what Contre Jour does with the spinners, anyway, I think that a reasonable approach for your case is using a UIPanGestureRecognizers to update the status of your spinning wheels according to the panning.
Now, it is not clear what you do to animate the spinning wheel (if you could provide some code, this would help understanding exactly what you are trying to do), but the idea would be this: instead of specifying an animation ending point far away from the starting point (and letting Core Animation do all the handling for you, even when the dragging has stopped), you would only modify the status of the spinning wheel in small increments.
If your only issue is stopping the animation when the dragging stops, you could try calling removeAnimationForKey on your layer to halt a specific animation.
Look into CADisplayLink. This works very much like an NSTimer, except its refresh rate is tied to that of the display, so your animations will be smoother than if you were to use timers. This will allow you to calculate all the in-between values and update your control.
I'm not clear what you are asking, but I do have one insight for you: To get the in-between values of an in-flight animation, query the layer's presentationLayer property. the property that's being animated will have a value that's a close approximation of it's on-screen appearance at the moment you fetch the value.
I am looking into making an iOS app that has little creatures. I plan on having these creatures grow and change shapes based on user interaction. So the creatures could end up looking very different based off what the user does.
My problem is animating these creatures. I have dealt with simple animations in the past with cocos2d, but nothing like this.
How can I animate these creatures being different sizes and shapes without having my graphic designer draw every possible image that could be used. In the game spore a user can create an animal of whatever shape or size they want and these animals animate. My question is how can I do something similar in 2d? I know this can't be a simple answer, but a point in the right direction is all I am looking for.
You could use some CGAffineTransforms to scale your drawing and custom filters with Core Image maybe to change the color.
I found the Exploding Ring particle effect best suite what I need but I could not figure out how to control the blast radius of this particle effect. I.e: not exploding out the whole screen but only exploding in a small circle
Does anyone know how to do it?
Thanks in advance
Probably easiest method is to use Particle Designer (http://particledesigner.71squared.com/). It has full Cocos2D support and you can visually see what you want with the editor without having to code it. You can see how to integrate the export files at http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:particles?s[]=particle. Hope that helps!