Question

While creating a cocos2d iOS game, there are several options to add spritesheets – CCTextureCache::addImageAsync, CCSpriteFrameCache::addSpriteFramesWithFile, etc. – what is the difference between using these different ways to add a spritesheet?

Similarly, to load a sprite, we can call CCSprite::spriteWithSpriteFrameName or CCSprite::spriteWithFile or CCSpriteBatchNode::batchNodeWithTexture, etc. What is the difference between using these techniques?

Thanks

Anand

Answer 1

Load sprite frames, this also loads the textures:

[[CCSpriteFrameCache sharedSpriteFrameCache] addSpriteFramesWithFile:@"file.plist"];

Use sprite frames:

CCSprite* sprite = [CCSprite spriteWithSpriteFrameName:@"frame.png"];

Add the sprite to a batch node:

CCSpriteBatchNode* batchNode = [CCSpriteBatchNode batchNodeWithTexture:sprite.texture];
[batchNode addChild:sprite];

The batchNodeWithFile works too if you use the same image file of the sprite. If the sprite was initialized with a spriteframe, it’ll be the texture atlas image (ie “file.png”).

addImageAsync is only needed if you want to load your texture on another thread, usually to animate the loading screen. You’ll still have to add the sprite frames afterwards.

CCSprite spriteWithFile creates a sprite from a single image file. Those can be batched too but it’s better to use a texture atlas with sprite frames.