SKTexture nearest filtering mode doesn't work (Making Pixel Art) - swift

Question

I used a relatively small image (44pixel tall) and scaled it up to have a pixel art look. I tried to change the filtering mode to nearest so the anti-aliasing would disappear but it didn't. It appears with blurry edges. I tried the same with a background getting the same result.
let myNode = SKSpriteNode()
class GameScene: SKScene {
func makeNode() {
myNode.position = CGPoint(x: self.frame.size.width/2, y: self.frame.size.height/2)
myNode.size = CGSize(width: 200, height: 200)
myNode.texture = SKTexture(imageNamed: "image")
myNode.texture!.filteringMode = .Nearest
return self.addChild(myNode)
}
}
override func didMoveToView(view: SKView) {
makeNode()
}

Answer 1

UPDATE:
SKTexture nearest filtering mode is now working in Xcode 7 GM. No need to manually scale images as I've suggested below.
I am experiencing this same problem in Xcode 7 beta 5 with beta iOS 9 ; the Nearest filtering mode is seemingly ignored. In my project, scaling with nearest-neighbor scaling was previously working in Xcode 6 on iOS 8.
In the event that the bug is not resolved before the final release of iOS 9 I am pre-scaling images before I place them in their respective atlases.
To do this I wrote a simple python script to recursively find png files and scale them using imagmagick.
If you don’t have imagemagick installed, you can install it using macports like so:
sudo port install ImageMagick
If you have homebrew it looks like this:
brew install imagemagick
I just place this script (below) in a file called imgscaler.py within the directory above my atlas files (which I want to scale by 400% in my case) and kick it off from the terminal:
python imgscaler.py
The script looks like this:
import subprocess
import os
import sys
import fnmatch
def main():
execution_folder_name = os.getcwd()
file_extension_name = "png"
#
# Collect names of files that will be manipulated
matches = []
for root, dirNames, fileNames in os.walk(execution_folder_name):
for filename in fnmatch.filter(fileNames, '*.' + file_extension_name):
full_name = os.path.join(root, filename)
matches.append(full_name)
scale_percentage = "400"
if not __query_yes_no("This script will scale images by " + scale_percentage + "% recursively from directory " + execution_folder_name + ". Proceed?"):
return
#
# Scale the images
for match in matches:
execution_str = "convert " + match + " -interpolate Nearest -filter point -resize " + scale_percentage + "% " + match + "\n"
sys.stdout.write(execution_str)
__run_command(execution_str)
def __run_command(input_cmd):
"""Runs a command on the terminal, and returns the output in a string array.
"""
process = subprocess.Popen(input_cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, shell=True)
output = []
while True:
line = process.stdout.readline()
if line != '':
output.append(line)
else:
break
return output
def __query_yes_no(question, default="yes"):
"""Asks a yes or no question, returns a true is answered "yes".
"""
valid = {"yes": True, "y": True, "ye": True,
"no": False, "n": False}
if default is None:
prompt = " [y/n] "
elif default == "yes":
prompt = " [Y/n] "
elif default == "no":
prompt = " [y/N] "
else:
raise ValueError("invalid default answer: '%s'" % default)
while True:
sys.stdout.write(question + prompt)
sys.stdout.flush()
choice = raw_input().lower()
if default is not None and choice == '':
sys.stdout.write(default)
sys.stdout.write('\n')
sys.stdout.flush()
return valid[default]
elif choice in valid:
sys.stdout.write(choice)
sys.stdout.write('\n')
sys.stdout.flush()
return valid[choice]
else:
sys.stdout.write("Please respond with 'yes' or 'no' (or 'y' or 'n').\n")
sys.stdout.flush()
main()
Change scale_percentage to whatever percentage you want to scale by.
BTW, I am guessing this scaling issue will eventually get resolved. I’m currently updating my code with this assumption in mind. This is just a bandaid in the event the fix to nearest-neighbor scaling in SpriteKit arrives later than iOS 9.0.

Answer 2

This is a bug in Xcode7 beta / iOS9. It works if you use Xcode 6.