Question

I created a new project with cocos2d, and then create a layer and a sprite.
I am trying to apply an animation to my sprite, and I found some samples about that. But I don’t understand the difference between CCAnimation and CCAnimate, so I haven’t applied any animation for my sprite yet.

What is the difference between these two and what is the real meaning of them? How to use them?

Can any one explain me about that? Please help me.

Answer 1

Here is code from “Working with Sprites, and Sprite batch nodes” in cocos2d-iphone Programming Guide:

......

NSMutableArray *animFrames = [NSMutableArray array];
for(int i = 1; i < 15; i++) {
    CCSpriteFrame *frame = [[CCSpriteFrameCache sharedSpriteFrameCache] spriteFrameByName:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"grossini_dance_%02d.png",i]];
    [animFrames addObject:frame];
}
CCAnimation *animation = [CCAnimation animationWithName:@"dance" delay:0.2f frames:animFrames];
[sprite runAction:[CCRepeatForever actionWithAction:[CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:animation restoreOriginalFrame:NO]]];

As you can see, you need to use both CCAnimate and CCAnimation to run a CCSpriteFrame-based animation on the sprite. Per description of CCAnimation:

The CCAnimation object contains CCSpriteFrame objects, and a possible delay between the frames. You can animate a CCAnimation object by using the CCAnimate action. Example:

[sprite runAction:[CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:animation]]; 

Generally speaking, CCAnimation is a wrapper of frame container. CCAnimate is the action that the sprite need to do – in fact it is a subclass of CCAction, which represents an action that a sprite can “run”, such as moving, jumping, rotating, etc. You can use its other subclasses to do some kinds of animation on your sprite without creating the frames yourself. Have a try with something like CCFadeIn, CCRotateBy, etc.