Changing programmatically the text of a 3D TextNode in SceneKit using Swift

Question

So I have placed a 3D Text Node in my SCN scene and I would like to change the value of the Text property later in my application

SceneKit Inspector

Above is how I change the value of the text from the inspector but is there a way to do it programmatically? thank you

Did you link your node on your SKScene? If so, what's the variable name? — Charles-olivier Demers, Aug 09 '17 at 02:48

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 09 '17 at 10:05

5

When you instantiate a "3D Text" object from the Object Library in Xcode, what you get is a SCNNode that has a SCNText as its geometry.

if let textGeometry = textNode.geometry as? SCNText {
    textGeometry.string = "something"
}

answered Aug 09 '17 at 10:05

mnuages

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '17 at 02:51

0

So if you have linked your text node with your game scene, programmatically you can do:

textNode.geometry.string = "your string"

It should work!

answered Aug 09 '17 at 02:51

I tried this but I get : Value of type 'SCNGeometry' has no member 'string' – Joseph Hajjar Aug 09 '17 at 02:56
@JosephHajjar Is it a SCNText ? – Charles-olivier Demers Aug 09 '17 at 03:02
I don't think so, I think it's SCNNode, from the inspector it looks like this http://imgur.com/HyGKCjl and the image above shows the inspector when I click on it with an additional Text Attribute, but I can't find a way to get a reference to it programmatically... – Joseph Hajjar Aug 09 '17 at 03:09
@JosephHajjar on your variable can you just do var.string = "your text"? – Charles-olivier Demers Aug 09 '17 at 03:11
I'm getting my var like this `let textNode = scene.rootNode.childNode(withName: "container", recursively: true)!` so It's a SCNNode and I can't use textNode.string – Joseph Hajjar Aug 09 '17 at 03:12
@JosephHajjar I would have a look at this problem tomorrow morning – Charles-olivier Demers Aug 09 '17 at 03:13
Cast the result of childNode with `if let textNode = scene.rootNode.childNode(withName: "container", recursively: true) as? SCNText { textNode.geometry.string = "whatever" }` – Brian H Sep 29 '17 at 21:55

Diskprotek · Answer 3 · 2018-01-09T19:59:22.537

This is what worked for me. Assume you've added a 3D Text Node in interface builder and it's called "CountDownText" in the node hierarchy.

In the relevant view controller, I have two properties:

var countDownText: SCNNode!
var theCountDownText: SCNText!

Later, bind the node from the interface builder to the code (in a set up node function):

countDownText = scnScene.rootNode.childNode(withName: "CountDownText", recursively: true)
theCountDownText = countDownText.geometry as! SCNText

Any time you want to change the display text of that node, you can just do as follows:

theCountDownText.string = "text"

3 Answers3