Sprite kit physics gravity on object - sprite-kit

I am making a simple game, using Sprite Kit and physics.
The problem is actually very simple, to my knowledge Sprite Kit allows to set gravity on physicsWorld, but I need to set gravity on physicsBodies in a way that a larger/heavier body influences everyone around it. By the life of me, I cannot find a feature to do this and before I start programming custom physics into the game, I want to know if anyone here knows of a standard way to do this.

You are looking for the SKFieldNode. There are different kinds of fields you can create, but it sounds like what you want would be a radialGravityField.
You can find out more at the linked Class Reference.

For each node, iterate over all other nodes in the scene and compute the net force acting on that node from the acceleration due to gravity. You can then applyForce to that node.

There are some new additions to SpriteKit in iOS 8, including numerous enhancements to physics. If you can target your game to iOS 8 and later, I suggest you check out the beta.

Related

using unity physics with SteamVR

I want to make a plank game in VR with Unity. So when the player walk outside of the plank, he falls. Right now the only way to make it work is by using VRTK which is another physics system and it makes a lot of things complicated.
I've put a rigidbody on the CameraRig and uncheck "is kinematic". The player falls, but the colliders on other objects are not working anymore...
Is there a way to use Unity's physics with SteamVR and without VRTK ??
Thank you !
Firstly I would read up on Rigidbodies and Colliders/Trigger Colliders - here's a link.
Here's a useful table from that website:
You will need to use this to understand why the player is falling. Is the CameraRig actually colliding with the ground? Is it a Trigger Collider (which has a callback method but doesn't do any physical collision). There's many possibilities for why.
I wrote a script that you can drag in two objects and see if they collide. You could use that if it helps.
The issue in VR with Vive is that determining where someone walks can be difficult, as we are only tracking their head and their hands. If you have a Vive Tracker available and it fits your use case you could use that to track someones foot.
What I have done in the past is use the Camera(eyes) GameObject within the CameraRig and get it's transform.position.x and transform.position.z value to determine if it has gone outside of the boundaries of the object the user is standing on.
Hope this helps,
Liam

Can I move dynamic physics bodies using SKAction when only contact detection is needed?

I am looking at tutorial where things are defined like this:
planes are sprites with dynamic physics bodies
plane moving is done with actions by following the path
there is contact detection between bullet and plane
bullet is sprite and it has physics body set to be static (which is little unusual in my opinion)
Here is the link to tutorial for more information.
Questions:
When we use actions to move physicsBodies is there a difference how we set body's dynamic property? Because bullet is static but still there is no problem for movement.
When we have situation like this, where we don't need collision detection, but just contact detection, and we can't move sprites (enemies) by applying forces or impulses, what is a good approach? Is this approach correct?
I think this is nice way, but I would like to be fully aware what is really happening when we use this method and are there any drawbacks or possible problems.
There are posts on SO that suggest we shouldn't use actions for moving dynamic physics bodies. I am aware that we can't use this approach in every case. For example this would not work for moving platform with other object on it, because there would be no correct physics simulation between body on the platform and platform moved by action. But in cases like from this tutorial, where we only need contact detection for object that can be moved only by actions (moved along path) I suppose it's not a problem ?
static means that the body isnt affected by physics. That doesnt mean it cant be manually repositioned or moved. So if something is set to static, it participates in the physics simulation, but it isnt affected by it. Think of a plane hitting a mountain. The plane is dynamic, the mountain is just going to sit there even though its participating in the physics. But you could still move that mountain around manually using a position or an action.
Not totally understanding your question, but I'll give it a shot.
You can move physicsBody's manually (using position property or actions), but you need to ask yourself why you're doing that. You typically don't want to do it because they're bypassing the physics simulation. If you're forcing it to move around, what's the point of using a physics body in the first place.. right?
But if your physicsbody is something like a powerup that is totally static, and you just want it to move around in a circle using an action then thats fine. You probably just want to use contact detection for the bullet, powerup, etc without actually moving it around using physics. Nothing wrong with that.

Kind of platformer game in Spritekit

I read that using a physics engine can be the cause of many problems in programming platformer type of games.
I am making something similar to the platformer game(not a classic platformer).
Game will have a platforms, but not many.
Game will not have moving platforms
Game will not have slopes
Game will have ladders
Hero can shoot the enemies
Hero can jump
Hero can access ladders from the air
I have to choose between physics engine and tile tehnique...
The first problems I can think of are:
problem with physics engine and the ladders because physics rules are applied to hero and his movement,so I guess it would be hard to get him on the ladders while his physicsBody.dynamic property is set to YES.
problem with the tile tehnique - how to make hero falling from the ledge(while running) with an realistic arc (when we use physics this is done by engine itself...)?
And the main problem, based on the type of the game I am making, is, sholud I combine tiles tehinque(let's say for hero's moving) and physics engine for collision detection, and shooting enemies?
I know there are a lot of questions about this subject, but I must start from something...
Tnx in advance
I would recommend the physics engine. It is very straight forward... what you expect is generally what happens.
Run, Jump, Shoot, Fall, etc. - Very easy to do using the physics engine.
Ladders will be problematic but you could set a bool flag that lets you know when the ladder and hero are touching, therefore allowing you to exhibit different behaviors depending if this bool is true or not. Ex. Make hero not affected by gravity if touching a ladder.
It is very smart that you are planning this out ahead of time and have outlined all of your core requirements. IMHO, the rest of the requirements will be so easy using the physics engine that it will outweigh additional time spent on the harder part with ladders.
I would advise against using a physics engine unless you have some complex physical interactions that would be difficult to code by hand, i.e. not just collision detection and basic movement but things reacting realistically to collisions, mechanical objects made of many moving parts and joints, etc. I'm not sure what you mean by a "tile technique", but you can easily code by hand things like a character accelerating towards the ground while maintaining forward momentum (i.e. tracing an arc).

Problem in using CCCamera

I am going to work on a game project. I am using cocos2d. I want to use cccamera class of cocos2d. Please tell me about any tutorial on cccamera. I want to implement more or less like angry birds, throwing the ball that reaches its destination facing the obstacles in the way.
So when the ball moves ahead the scene accordingly moves back depending on speed of the ball.
How to manage all that. I think i should use cccamera.
Thanx.
CCCamera, per the documentation is used for 3D effects (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/api-ref/latest-stable/interface_c_c_camera.html) and recommends the use of CCFollow (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/api-ref/latest-stable/interface_c_c_follow.html) for 2D related effects (such as following the birds forward, etc).

chipmunk stack fall effect

I am using chipmunk cocos 2d iphone ,in which i have to show stack fall effect when the objects are placed on the edge of other
object.My idea is to develop the effect like "Tower Box " game. I would like to know which properties of shape or body will create effect like "Tower Box " game .please let me know how can I fall that stack.
Cocos2d provides you with a few preset project options.
One of these is Cocos2d with Box2d, another is Cocos2d with Chipmunk. It is completely up to you which physics engine you use, I have experience with both and personally, would recommend Box2d.
If you create one of these projects, it generates some example code for you, and in the case of Box2d (i haven't used an auto generated chipmunk project), you get a nice little app that spawns loads of boxes and shows them falling with gravity. You should take a look at the code behind creating the physics bodies on the boxes and adapt it to suit your application (spawn a box at a touch location, perhaps?). You could then add some logic that checks, on collision, the alignment of the falling box with the top of the stack, and either let it continue falling, or use a fixture to attach it to the box below.
For more information about using physics in a cocos2d app, as well as general cocos2d usage, check out this blog, it's what taught me in the beginning: http://www.raywenderlich.com/ [edit: just noticed there are no chipmunk tutorials on there, but the theory should be applicable to both. I found Box2d easier to use than Chipmunk]
What physics effects have you got on the stack so far? What problem have you encountered that made you question the physics properties of the objects?
For these effects you need a physics library. For 2d games box2d is quite good.