Timelines & Triggers - Learn SpriteBuilder for iOS Game Development - page 146

Note Sequences and Timelines are closely related terms, though not exactly
identical. Cocos2D uses the term sequence for any set of CCAction classes
wrapped in a CCActionSequence class that runs the actions it wraps in se-
quential order. For instance, when a node moves from A to B, then rotates 90
degrees, then moves to C, that's a sequence. A Timeline in SpriteBuilder can
then be considered a composite of multiple sequences because, for example,
you could also animate a node's opacity and scale while performing the move
and rotate actions. Generally speaking, a Timeline is one or more sequences
playing in parallel.
Every node instance has an animationManager property through which you can ac-
cess the CCAnimationManager and thus play back animations by name. For a quick
test, add the code in Listing 5-1 at the end of the loadLevelNamed: method in
GameScene.m .
Listing 5-1 . Running an animation using CCAnimationManager
CCNode* sawNoAutoplay = [_physicsNode
getChildByName:@"sawNoAutoplay" recursively:YES];
[sawNoAutoplay.animationManager
runAnimationsForSequenceNamed:@"Default Timeline"];
The first line you should be familiar with. You obtain a reference to the node by name.
The animation manager is then instructed to run the sequence named Default
Timeline , which must be the exact name of the Timeline in SpriteBuilder, including
case. If you build and run this, you'll notice the non-autoplaying saw is now animating
again.
Note It's important to note that each CCB file has its own CCAnima-
tionManager instance where only that specific CCB file's timelines are
stored. All Timeline animations edited in a CCB file are stored in the CCAnim-
ationManager of the CCB's root node, while each of the CCB's child node's
animationManager instances forwards animation requests to the root
node's animationManager instance.
Therefore, in Listing 5-1 it wouldn't work if you used, say, the anima-
tionManager of self ( GameScene.ccb ), _physicsNode or