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iOS ObjectiveC Parallax Effect Scrolling UIKit

HowTo: Implement endless scrolling with parallax effects

Welcome to Part 5 of my blog series about game development: Endless Scrolling

Today I’ll create a component which implements the endless scrolling and adds some parallax effects. I’ll use SpriteKit for that. A nice tutorial about SpriteKit can be found here and here and here.

If you haven’t completed part 3 or 4, you can download the project from GitHub: v0.3

First of all we need some background images to show the infinite parallax scrolling. I’ve created four layers:

Background:

 
 
 
 
 

BackgroundBush:

 
 

BackgroundTree:

 
 

BackgroundGrass:

 
 
 

Combining all images together looks like this:

 
 
 
 
 
 

Adding the images to out XCode project:

 
The size of textures for SKSpriteNode is limited. Therefore I’ll slice the background into tiles:
 
 
 
For example the Background image is only shown fullscreen without scrolling. The Bush background has a size of 4 screens. It is used for scrolling. Remember my last post: The first and the last screen must be identical!
 
 
One principle from the Apple design guidelines to provide an excellent user experience is: Do not scale!
 
That means we need multiple versions of our images in different resolutions.
(=> 4 versions, if we limit our target platform to iOS 7 or newer.)
 

 

 
Add the images to the Asset Catalog. If you are not familiar with Asset Catalog, Apple has a nice tutorial here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Adding a SpriteKit Scene to our ViewController:

Now after creating many different images let’s start coding …

1. Add the SpriteKit Library to the project

Press ‘+’ to add a new library

Choose SpriteKit.framework

 
Add an import statement for SpriteKit to the MyFirstGame-Prefix.pch file

2. Create a new Scene:

Add a new file with type Objective-c class:
 
New file must be a subclass of SKScene:
 
A SKScene represents the content of a scene in Sprite Kit. It is the root node of other Sprite Kit nodes (SKNode)
 
 
Add another file to implement the endless scrolling:
 
This file must be a subtype of SKNode. A SKNode object can be added to our scene. It’s also possible to other nodes in a hierarchical order, one for every background.

3. Implement ParallaxHandlerNode

This class is derived from SKNode. It is the root element for all backgrounds/tiles which are created for the endless scrolling:
 

ParallaxHandlerNode.h:

#import <SpriteKit/SpriteKit.h>
 
@interface ParallaxHandlerNode : SKNode
 
-(id)initWithSize:(CGSize)Size;

-(void)addBackgroundLayer:(NSArray*)tiles;

 

-(void)scroll:(float)speed;

@end
 
 
The ParallaxHandlerNode class implements three methods:
  • initWithSize – initializes the object
  • addBackgroundLayer – adds a layer to the parallax hierarchy
  • scroll – implements the endless scrolling for all layers

ParallaxHandlerNode.m:

 
#import “ParallaxHandlerNode.h”
 
@implementation ParallaxHandlerNode
 
CGSize _containerSize;
 
-(id)initWithSize:(CGSize)size {
    _containerSize=size;
    return [self init];
}
 
 
// Add a background layer.
-(void)addBackgroundLayer:(NSArray*)tiles {
 
    // Create static background
    if ([tiles count]==1 ) {
        SKSpriteNode *background=[SKSpriteNode spriteNodeWithImageNamed🙁NSString*)[tiles objectAtIndex:0]];
        background.position=CGPointMake(_containerSize.width/2, _containerSize.height/2);
        [self addChild:background];
    } else {
        // Create a background for infinite scrolling
 
        // Create a SKNode a root element
        SKNode *background=[[SKNode alloc]init];
        [self addChild:background];
 
        // Create and add tiles to the node
        for (int i=0; i<[tiles count]; i++) {
            NSString *item = [tiles objectAtIndex:i];
            SKSpriteNode *tile;
            if (![item isEqualToString: @””]) {
                // Add an emtpy screen
                tile=[SKSpriteNode spriteNodeWithImageNamed:item];
                tile.position=CGPointMake(_containerSize.width/2+(i*_containerSize.width), 0);
            } else {
                tile=[[SKSpriteNode alloc] init];
                tile.size=_containerSize;
                tile.position=CGPointMake(_containerSize.width/2+(i*_containerSize.width), _containerSize.height/2);
            }
            [background addChild:tile];
        }
        // position background at the second screen
        background.position=CGPointMake(-_containerSize.width, _containerSize.height/2);
    }
}
 
// Infinite scrolling:
// – Scroll the backgrounds and switch back if the end or the start screen is reached
// – Speed depends on layer to simulare deepth
-(void)scroll:(float)speed {
 
    for (int i=0; i<self.children.count;i++) {
        SKNode *node = [self.children objectAtIndex:i];
        // If more than one screen => Scrolling
        if (node.children.count>0) {
 
            float parallaxPos=node.position.x;
            NSLog(@”x: %f”, parallaxPos);
            if (speed>0) {
                parallaxPos+=speed*i;
                if (parallaxPos>=0) {
                    // switch between first and last screen
                    parallaxPos=-_containerSize.width*(node.children.count-1);
                }
            } else if (speed<0) {
 
                parallaxPos+=speed*i;
                if (parallaxPos<-_containerSize.width*(node.children.count-1)) {
                    // switch between last and first screen
                    parallaxPos=0;
                }
            }
 
            // Set new node position. Position can’t be set directly, therefore tempPos is used.
            CGPoint tmpPos=node.position;
            tmpPos.x    = parallaxPos;
            node.position = tmpPos;
 
        }
    }
}
@end
 

4. Create the scene:

The GameScene class is inherited from SKScene and implements four methods:
  • initWithSize – initializes the object
  • touchesBegan – reacts on touch events, changes speed and direction
  • addBackgrounds – adds the background layers
  • update – the game loop
GameScene.m:
 
#import “GameScene.h”
#import “ParallaxHandlerNode.h”
 
// Constants
#define cStartSpeed 5
#define cMaxSpeed 80
 
@implementation GameScene
 
 
// private properties
NSTimeInterval _lastUpdateTime;
NSTimeInterval _dt;
int _speed=cStartSpeed;
 
 
ParallaxHandlerNode *background;
 
-(id)initWithSize:(CGSize)size {
    if (self = [super initWithSize:size]) {
        [self addBackgrounds];
    }
    return self;
}
 
// Increase speed after touch event up to 5 times.
// After maximum speed is reached the next touch changes the scroll direction
-(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
    if (_speed<cMaxSpeed && _speed>-cMaxSpeed) {
        _speed=_speed*2;
    } else {
        if (_speed<0) {
            _speed=cStartSpeed;
        } else {
            _speed=-cStartSpeed;
        }
    }
}
 
// Add the background elements for parallax scrolling
-(void)addBackgrounds {
 
    // Array contains the name of the background tiles. “” for adding an empty screen
    NSArray  *nameBackground = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: @”Background”, nil];
    NSArray  *nameBush = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@”BackgroundBushLeft”, @”BackgroundBushRight”, @””, @”BackgroundBushLeft”, nil];
    NSArray  *nameTree = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@”BackgroundTreeLeft”, @”BackgroundTreeRight”, @”BackgroundTreeLeft” ,nil];
    NSArray  *nameGrass = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@””, @”BackgroundGrassCenter”, @””, nil];
 
    // Root node which contains the tree of backgrounds/background tiles
    background = [[ParallaxHandlerNode alloc] initWithSize:self.size];
    [self addChild:background];
 
    [background addBackgroundLayer:nameBackground];
    [background addBackgroundLayer:nameBush];
    [background addBackgroundLayer:nameTree];
    [background addBackgroundLayer:nameGrass];
 
}
 
// The GameLoop
-(void)update:(NSTimeInterval)currentTime {
 
     // Needed for smooth scrolling. It’s not guaranteed, that the update method is not called in fixed intervalls
     if (_lastUpdateTime) {
         _dt = currentTime – _lastUpdateTime;
     } else {
         _dt = 0;
     }
     _lastUpdateTime = currentTime;
 
    // Scroll
    [background scroll:_speed*_dt];
 
}
 
@end
 

5. Add the scene to GameViewController:

Add this method to GameViewController.h
 
-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];
 
    SKView * skView = [[SKView alloc]initWithFrame:self.view.frame]; //(SKView *)self.view;
    [self.view addSubview:skView];
    skView.showsFPS = YES;
    skView.showsNodeCount = YES;
 
    // Create and configure the scene.
    GameScene *gameScene = [GameScene sceneWithSize:skView.bounds.size];
    gameScene.scaleMode = SKSceneScaleModeResizeFill; //SKSceneScaleModeAspectFill;
 
    // Present the scene.
    [skView presentScene:gameScene];
}
 

6. Deploy and run

That’s all for today.

 
Cheers,
Stefan