Alter SKReferenceNode from GameViewController

Question

I'm developing a game in Swift using the SpriteKit framework. In this app, I have GameScene.sks where my UI is presented. Within that .sks file there is an SKReferenceNode for the bottom-menu. The bottom-menu is going to change it's height if the user is running the game from an iPhone X.

However, I have some trouble getting to that point. I made the menu a SKReferenceNode because it's used in multiple scenes - so if I change the menu, it will change in all of the scenes (GameScene.sks, GameScene1.sks, GameScene2.sks and so on.. )

What would be the best way to approach this? I'm sorry if this is an obvious question, but I've been starring myself blind at this one.

You need to change the height based in the code behind of the sks file that the SKReferenceNode uses. The height difference is negligible between the X and the other 16:9 devices, is it worth the effort? — Knight0fDragon, Jan 19 '18 at 18:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 19 '18 at 18:37

you are doing fine, using menu as an SKReferenceNode is what I would do as well. However you don't need to alter it from the GameViewController to achieve the results you want.

What I do in the situation where I need the appearance of an RefNode to be dependant on some variables I don't load the appearance in the required init

normally inside of the RefNode class I do this

class SomeObject: SKSpriteNode {
    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)

        setup()
    }

    func setup() {
        //setup objects in here
    }
}

but instead when i need to alter the presentation i comment out the setup call in the required init

and then call setup from the initialization code in my GameScene

class SomeObject: SKSpriteNode {
    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)    
        //setup()
    }

    func setup(height: CGFloat) {

        //setup objects in here
        if let background = self.childNode(withName: "//background") as? SKSpriteNode {
            self. background = background
            background.size.height = height
        }
    }
}

then in GameScene

func createSomeObject() {

    if let someObjectNode = self.childNode(withName: "//someObjectNode") as? SKReferenceNode {

        someObject = someObjectNode(withName: "//someObjectNode") as? SomeObject

        //you can figure out this multiple ways
        if isIpad {
            height = 50
        }
        else if isIphoneX {
            height = 250
        }
        someObject.setup(height: height)
    }
}

Thank you many times for the solution, Ron! That's great! However, as I read your answer then I have to add the "func createSomeObject()" method to all of my scenes - is that correct, or am I missing something? :) — theloneswiftman, Jan 19 '18 at 20:51
yes, at some point in your scene you are probably going to want to find that object in your scene and put it into a local variable so that you can access that object from anywhere in your scene. for example. if it was a GameHUD that you created in an SKReferenceNode you would put that object in a local variable gameHUD so that you could access its properties from the scene, like `gameHUD.score = 50` that's all the createSomeObject func is doing — Ron Myschuk, Jan 19 '18 at 20:57
@user2026507 let me know if this works for you, and if it does please mark it as correct to help others that might have these issues — Ron Myschuk, Jan 19 '18 at 21:10
Sorry for the late reply. Works like a charm. Thank you, Ron! — theloneswiftman, Feb 05 '18 at 11:45

Alter SKReferenceNode from GameViewController

1 Answers1