Restricting a node within another in SpriteKit - swift

I'm new to SpriteKit, trying to build basic Breakout game. The problem I'm facing is that I can't restrict the paddle within the screen (that's yet another node with blue texture as shown in image). When I move the paddle it goes beyond the screen limits.
I've applied physics to both, screen area and the paddle but no luck.

Your paddle doesn't collide appropriately with the edge because you are moving it by changing its position directly. To participate in the physics simulation, the paddle must be moved by setting its velocity or by applying a force or impulse to its physics body. For example,
for touch in (touches as! Set<UITouch>) {
let location = touch.locationInNode(self)
if (location.x < size.width/2.0) {
paddle.physicsBody?.applyImpulse(CGVectorMake(-scale, 0))
}
else {
paddle.physicsBody?.applyImpulse(CGVectorMake(scale, 0))
}
}
where scale determines the amount of momentum that is applied to the body in the x dimension.
EDIT:
Alternatively, you can constrain the paddle's x position to be within a set range by
let range = SKRange(lowerLimit: CGRectGetMinX(view.frame), upperLimit: CGRectGetMaxX(view.frame))
let constraint = SKConstraint.positionX(range)
paddle.constraints = [constraint]
Add the above to the didMoveToView method.

Related

SpriteKit 'pinned' property allows y-axis change in position

I have a SpriteKit game in which balls bounce around, interacting with other objects.
One of those other objects is a spinner that should rotate around its center, but NOT change its x/y position. It should be stationary except for the rotation.
According to Apple's documentation, node.physicsBody.pinned = true should do exactly what I want, making it so that:
"the node’s position is fixed relative to its parent. The node’s position cannot be changed by actions or physics forces. The node can freely rotate around its position in response to collisions or other forces."
However, that's not what's happening. What's happening is that the spinner's y-axis position changes when a ball hits it squarely -- briefly moving down and then popping back into the correct position.
My code for the spinner (please assume all variables are defined):
for i in 0..<spinners.count {
let spinnerNode = SKSpriteNode(texture: texture)
spinnerNode.position = CGPoint(x: spinners[i].minX, y: spinners[i].minY)
spinnerNode.size = CGSize(width: spinners[i].width, height: spinners[i].height)
spinnerNode.physicsBody = SKPhysicsBody(texture: spinnerNode.texture!, size: CGSize(width: spinners[i].width, height: spinners[i].height))
spinnerNode.physicsBody?.isDynamic = true
spinnerNode.physicsBody?.affectedByGravity = false
spinnerNode.physicsBody?.pinned = true
addChild(spinnerNode)
}
Why on earth is my spinner node moving vertically when a ball collides with it? Why isn't .pinned working as advertised?
Thank you for your help!
I solved the problem by setting the spinner node's mass to a value slightly greater than that of the ball nodes.
node.physicsBody?.mass = 6.0

How do I programmatically move an ARAnchor?

I'm trying out the new ARKit to replace another similar solution I have. It's pretty great! But I can't seem to figure out how to move an ARAnchor programmatically. I want to slowly move the anchor to the left of the user.
Creating the anchor to be 2 meters in front of the user:
var translation = matrix_identity_float4x4
translation.columns.3.z = -2.0
let transform = simd_mul(currentFrame.camera.transform, translation)
let anchor = ARAnchor(transform: transform)
sceneView.session.add(anchor: anchor)
later, moving the object to the left/right of the user (x-axis)...
anchor.transform.columns.3.x = anchor.transform.columns.3.x + 0.1
repeated every 50 milliseconds (or whatever).
The above does not work because transform is a get-only property.
I need a way to change the position of an AR object in space relative to the user in a way that keeps the AR experience intact - meaning, if you move your device, the AR object will be moving but also won't be "stuck" to the camera like it's simply painted on, but moves like you would see a person move while you were walking by - they are moving and you are moving and it looks natural.
Please note the scope of this question relates only to how to move an object in space in relation to the user (ARAnchor), not in relation to a plane (ARPlaneAnchor) or to another detected surface (ARHitTestResult).
Thanks!
You don't need to move anchors. (hand wave) That's not the API you're looking for...
Adding ARAnchor objects to a session is effectively about "labeling" a point in real-world space so that you can refer to it later. The point (1,1,1) (for example) is always the point (1,1,1) — you can't move it someplace else because then it's not the point (1,1,1) anymore.
To make a 2D analogy: anchors are reference points sort of like the bounds of a view. The system (or another piece of your code) tells the view where it's boundaries are, and the view draws its content relative to those boundaries. Anchors in AR give you reference points you can use for drawing content in 3D.
What you're asking is really about moving (and animating the movement of) virtual content between two points. And ARKit itself really isn't about displaying or animating virtual content — there are plenty of great graphics engines out there, so ARKit doesn't need to reinvent that wheel. What ARKit does is provide a real-world frame of reference for you to display or animate content using an existing graphics technology like SceneKit or SpriteKit (or Unity or Unreal, or a custom engine built with Metal or GL).
Since you mentioned trying to do this with SpriteKit... beware, it gets messy. SpriteKit is a 2D engine, and while ARSKView provides some ways to shoehorn a third dimension in there, those ways have their limits.
ARSKView automatically updates the xScale, yScale, and zRotation of each sprite associated with an ARAnchor, providing the illusion of 3D perspective. But that applies only to nodes attached to anchors, and as noted above, anchors are static.
You can, however, add other nodes to your scene, and use those same properties to make those nodes match the ARSKView-managed nodes. Here's some code you can add/replace in the ARKit/SpriteKit Xcode template project to do that. We'll start with some basic logic to run a bouncing animation on the third tap (after using the first two taps to place anchors).
var anchors: [ARAnchor] = []
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
// Start bouncing on touch after placing 2 anchors (don't allow more)
if anchors.count > 1 {
startBouncing(time: 1)
return
}
// Create anchor using the camera's current position
guard let sceneView = self.view as? ARSKView else { return }
if let currentFrame = sceneView.session.currentFrame {
// Create a transform with a translation of 30 cm in front of the camera
var translation = matrix_identity_float4x4
translation.columns.3.z = -0.3
let transform = simd_mul(currentFrame.camera.transform, translation)
// Add a new anchor to the session
let anchor = ARAnchor(transform: transform)
sceneView.session.add(anchor: anchor)
anchors.append(anchor)
}
}
Then, some SpriteKit fun for making that animation happen:
var ballNode: SKLabelNode = {
let labelNode = SKLabelNode(text: "🏀")
labelNode.horizontalAlignmentMode = .center
labelNode.verticalAlignmentMode = .center
return labelNode
}()
func startBouncing(time: TimeInterval) {
guard
let sceneView = self.view as? ARSKView,
let first = anchors.first, let start = sceneView.node(for: first),
let last = anchors.last, let end = sceneView.node(for: last)
else { return }
if ballNode.parent == nil {
addChild(ballNode)
}
ballNode.setScale(start.xScale)
ballNode.zRotation = start.zRotation
ballNode.position = start.position
let scale = SKAction.scale(to: end.xScale, duration: time)
let rotate = SKAction.rotate(toAngle: end.zRotation, duration: time)
let move = SKAction.move(to: end.position, duration: time)
let scaleBack = SKAction.scale(to: start.xScale, duration: time)
let rotateBack = SKAction.rotate(toAngle: start.zRotation, duration: time)
let moveBack = SKAction.move(to: start.position, duration: time)
let action = SKAction.repeatForever(.sequence([
.group([scale, rotate, move]),
.group([scaleBack, rotateBack, moveBack])
]))
ballNode.removeAllActions()
ballNode.run(action)
}
Here's a video so you can see this code in action. You'll notice that the illusion only works as long as you don't move the camera — not so great for AR. When using SKAction, we can't adjust the start/end states of the animation while animating, so the ball keeps bouncing back and forth between its original (screen-space) positions/rotations/scales.
You could do better by animating the ball directly, but it's a lot of work. You'd need to, on every frame (or every view(_:didUpdate:for:) delegate callback):
Save off the updated position, rotation, and scale values for the anchor-based nodes at each end of the animation. You'll need to do this twice per didUpdate callback, because you'll get one callback for each node.
Work out position, rotation, and scale values for the node being animated, by interpolating between the two endpoint values based on the current time.
Set the new attributes on the node. (Or maybe animate it to those attributes over a very short duration, so it doesn't jump too much in one frame?)
That's kind of a lot of work to shoehorn a fake 3D illusion into a 2D graphics toolkit — hence my comments about SpriteKit not being a great first step into ARKit.
If you want 3D positioning and animation for your AR overlays, it's a lot easier to use a 3D graphics toolkit. Here's a repeat of the previous example, but using SceneKit instead. Start with the ARKit/SceneKit Xcode template, take the spaceship out, and paste the same touchesBegan function from above into the ViewController. (Change the as ARSKView casts to as ARSCNView, too.)
Then, some quick code for placing 2D billboarded sprites, matching via SceneKit the behavior of the ARKit/SpriteKit template:
// in global scope
func makeBillboardNode(image: UIImage) -> SCNNode {
let plane = SCNPlane(width: 0.1, height: 0.1)
plane.firstMaterial!.diffuse.contents = image
let node = SCNNode(geometry: plane)
node.constraints = [SCNBillboardConstraint()]
return node
}
// inside ViewController
func renderer(_ renderer: SCNSceneRenderer, didAdd node: SCNNode, for anchor: ARAnchor) {
// emoji to image based on https://stackoverflow.com/a/41021662/957768
let billboard = makeBillboardNode(image: "⛹️".image())
node.addChildNode(billboard)
}
Finally, adding the animation for the bouncing ball:
let ballNode = makeBillboardNode(image: "🏀".image())
func startBouncing(time: TimeInterval) {
guard
let sceneView = self.view as? ARSCNView,
let first = anchors.first, let start = sceneView.node(for: first),
let last = anchors.last, let end = sceneView.node(for: last)
else { return }
if ballNode.parent == nil {
sceneView.scene.rootNode.addChildNode(ballNode)
}
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: #keyPath(SCNNode.transform))
animation.fromValue = start.transform
animation.toValue = end.transform
animation.duration = time
animation.autoreverses = true
animation.repeatCount = .infinity
ballNode.removeAllAnimations()
ballNode.addAnimation(animation, forKey: nil)
}
This time the animation code is a lot shorter than the SpriteKit version.
Here's how it looks in action.
Because we're working in 3D to start with, we're actually animating between two 3D positions — unlike in the SpriteKit version, the animation stays where it's supposed to. (And without the extra work for directly interpolating and animating attributes.)

Swift-Setting a physics body velocity by angle

I was wondering if it was at all possible to make an SKNode move forward in a particular direction, but with only one factor. I'm aware of both applying an impulse and setting the velocity of a physics body, but they're both determined by two factors; dx and dy. I also know of rotating to an angle with SKActions. But is it possible to make an object simply "move forward" once it has been set on an angle? Or set its velocity with just one factor?
Thanks in advance.
Yes, is the answer to your question.
What I think you're looking for = THRUST... right?
What you want is for the "ship" to be able to rotate in any direction, and the thrust to be applied correctly, out of the "arse" of the ship, moving it forward, in ship terms.
This is absolutely possible, but does require a little "dummy" trick.
But I'm confusing you.
The local space of a SKPhysicsBody is relative to its parent. I presume.
And there's the speculative part. I'm guessing. I haven't tried this.
But... most physicsBodys are the child of an SKNode that's parented to the scene.
If you parent your ship to a dummy node for the purposes of rotation, and then rotate the dummy node, you should be able to make your spaceship fly in circles without ever changing the thrust vector, by simply rotating the dummy node.
Theoretically.
Something like this horrible pseudo code might help to start... maybe.
let dummy = SKNode()
let ship = SKSPriteNode()
dummy.addchild(ship)
ship.Physicsbody(add how you want here...)
ship.PhysicsBody.applyForce (vector that's only X, for example)
rotate dummy with action over time...
Sure I think what you're talking about is something like this:
Now let's say you have an SKSpriteNode that is called player who eventually has a physicsBody setup.
var player: SKSpriteNode!
You can just set the dx property of their velocity, so lets say you wanted to move them horizontally towards the location where the user tapped on the right hand side of the screen. If you then detect the position of the touch with touchesBegan(_:)
override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
guard let touch = touches.first else { return }
// Replace with name of node to detect touch
let touchLocation = touch.location(in: <NAME_OF_NODE_PROPERTY>)
// Verify it's in front of the player and not behind
if (touchLocation.x - playerPosition.x) > 0 {
movePlayerVertically(toward: touchLocation)
}
}
func movePlayerVertically(toward location: CGPoint) {
let dx:CGFloat = location.x - player.position.x
player.physicsBody!.velocity.dx = dx
}
EDIT: -
Since you said you just want to be able to move your player horizontally without knowing the destination, you could do something like this, this is just moving the player forward on the x-axis by 50pts every second, and will repeat it forever. Obviously you would want to tweak it to your liking.
let move = SKAction.moveBy(x: 50, y: 0, duration: 1)
let repeatAction = SKAction.repeatForever(move)
player.run(repeatAction)

How to make touch.locationInNode() recognize the difference between a node and its child?

I started out by declaring two SKSpriteNodes, handle and blade, and adding handle as a child of self, and blade as a child of handle
var handle = SKSpriteNode(imageNamed: "Handle.png")
var blade = SKSpriteNode(imageNamed: "Blade.png")
override func didMoveToView(view: SKView) {
handle.position = CGPointMake(self.size.width / 2, self.size.height / 14)
blade.position = CGPointMake(0, 124)
self.addChild(Handle)
Handle.addChild(Blade)
}
When I click on the handle, it prints to the console "Handle was clicked", however when I click on the Blade, it also prints "Handle was clicked". It is clearly recognizing that the blade is a child of handle, but how can I make it so when I click on blade, it prints "Blade was clicked"?
override func touchesBegan(touches: Set<NSObject>, withEvent event: UIEvent) {
for touch in (touches as! Set<UITouch>) {
let location = touch.locationInNode(self)
if (Handle.containsPoint(location)){
NSLog("Handle was clicked")
}
else if (Blade.containsPoint(location)){
NSLog("Blade was clicked")
}
}
}
Determining whether the user touched the sword's handle or the blade is fairly straightforward with some caveats. The following assumes that 1. the sword image is facing to the right when zRotation = 0, 2. the anchorPoint of the sword is (0, 0.5), and 3. the sword (blade and handle) is a single sprite node. When you add a sprite to another sprite, the size of the parent's frame expands to include the child node. That's why your test of Handle.containsPoint is true no matter where you click on the sword.
The figure below shows a sword sprite with a dark gray handle (on the left) and lighter gray blade. The black rectangle surrounding the sword represents the sprite's frame and the circle represents the location of the user's touch. The length of the line labeled a is the distance from the touch point to the bottom of the sword. We can test this distance to see if the user touched the handle (if a <= handleLength) or the blade (if a > handleLength). When zRotation = 0, a = x so the test is x <= handleLength, where the bottom of the sword is x = 0.
In the below figure, the sword is rotated by 90 degree (i.e., zRotation = M_PI_2). Similarly, if a <= handleLength, the user touched the handle, else the user touched the blade. The only difference is a is now the y value instead of x due to the sword's rotation. In both cases, the frame's bounding box can be used, as is, to detect if the user touched the sword.
When the sprite is rotated by 45 degree, however, its frame automatically expands to enclose the sprite as shown by the black rectangle in the figure below. Consequently, when the user touches anywhere in the rectangle, the test if sprite.frame.contains(location) will be true. This may result in the user picking up the sword when the location of the touch is relatively far from the sword (i.e., when the distance b is large). If we want the maximum touch distance to be the same across all rotation angles, additional testing is required.
The good news is Sprite Kit provides a way to convert from one coordinate system to another. In this case, we need to convert from scene coordinates to the sword coordinates. This greatly simplifies the problem because it also rotates the point to the new coordinate system. After converting from scene to sword coordinates, the converted touch location's x and y values are the same as the distances a and b over all rotation angles! Now that we know a and b, we can determine how close the touch was to the sword and whether the user touched the handle or the blade.
From the above, we can implement the following code:
let location = touch.locationInNode(self)
// Check if the user touched inside of the sword's frame (see Figure 1-3)
if (sword.frame.contains(location)) {
// Convert the touch location from scene to sword coordinates
let point = sword.convertPoint(location, fromNode: self)
// Check if the user touched any part of the sword. Note that a = point.x and b = point.y
if (fabs(point.y) < sword.size.height/2 + touchTolerance) {
// Check if the user touched the handle
if (point.x <= handleLength) {
println("touched handle")
}
else {
println("touched blade")
}
}
}
This should work without changing too much of your existing code...
override func touchesBegan(touches: Set<NSObject>, withEvent event: UIEvent) {
for touch in (touches as! Set<UITouch>) {
let locationInScene = touch.locationInNode(self)
let locationInHandel = touch.locationInNode(Handle)
if (Blade.containsPoint(locationInHandel)){
NSLog("Blade was clicked")
}
else if (Handle.containsPoint(locationInScene)){
NSLog("Handle was clicked")
}
}
}
Note you are checking for blade first then you check for handle. Also note you have to convert the touchpoint to give you a point from within handle.
With that being said this will work on a small scale, but you may want to look at creating a subclass for SKSpriteNode called Handle or Sword (this is why you don't use first caps for variable names they are normally only use first caps for classes), set it to userInteractionEnabled and then override touchesBegan in that subclass and see if it is touching the blade and if not you know it touched the handle.
Hopefully that helped and made sense.

Constraining movement of a SKSpriteNode to a fixed area within a scene

How can I constrain manual movement of an SKSpriteNode to a fixed rectangular area within a scene? This fixed rectangular area a also a SKSpriteNode which is fixed within the scene. In other words, I want to constrain manual movement of an object (SKSpriteNode) to be completely contained within another SKSpriteNode or at least in the same space that it occupies. I have tried several different approaches (e.g. using an SKShapeNode that has an edged-based physics body), but nothing seems to work. This seems like it should be a fairly simple task to accomplish. Thanks for any help or hints you can offer.
Put an if statement around your moving code - so don't carry out the movement if it will take the object past your boundary. e.g.
//check that a positive movement won't take your node past the right boundary
if(node.position.x + yourXMovementValue < boundaryXRight){
//move your node
}
//same for y
let rangeX = SKRange(lowerLimit: CGFloat, upperLimit: CGFloat)
let contraintX = SKConstraint.positionX(rangeX)
let rangeY = SKRange(lowerLimit: CGFloat, upperLimit: CGFloat)
let contraintY = SKConstraint.positionY(rangeY)
yourObject.constraints = [contraintX, contraintY]