Question

I am trying to learn and build talking puppet iPhone application. The great example is “Talking Ben the Dog” and here is youtube video. I have no idea how am I going to build such application. I have a graphics designer who will do their part. As a being programmer, what would I need to be aware of? If someone can throw their ideas or point me some relavant documentation or sample code would be great help.

Thanks.

Answer 1

First, you’ll need to create the content. That means the animation scenes and any associated audio. Next, you’ll want to trigger those scenes based upon the user’s input.

If you want more advanced functionality like “talk back” where the app repeats what you say, then you’ll need to get a grip with AudioQueue and AudioUnit APIs. That means detecting levels of incoming audio then triggering writing audio in to stored buffers. These APIs are difficult so this will be the most technically challenging part. You’ll need to be comfortable with pointers and other lower level programming concepts.

For an app without talk back, a lot of work will be required to create the content. Then you’ll need to re-create the animations using UIImage and the Core Animation framework in your app.

There are a lot of great videos on the Apple site and sample code. This will be a brilliant learning curve for you to get up to speed with Core Animation.