iOS 9 Game Development Essentials by Chuck Gaffney

Author:Chuck Gaffney [Gaffney, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Published: 2015-11-05T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4. SceneKit and 3D Game Design

For this chapter, we will be going over the iOS framework used for 3D game development known as SceneKit. SceneKit first became available in iOS 7 but originally was just used for MacOS development. Previously, developers had to code 3D games using OpenGL or third-party frameworks and engines, such as Cocos3D, Unreal Engine, Havok, and Unity. As the graphical power in the iOS family of devices improved, so did the need for an immersive, hands-on first-party 3D game design engine. SceneKit shortly became available for iOS giving developers an Xcode built-in solution to make 3D games.

In the previous chapter, we approached iOS game development in a more code-based methodology. We'll still be working in some code, but since the introduction of Xcode 5 and Xcode 6, Apple has provided some great demos that show how the IDE can be just as visually dynamic of a game engine as multiplatform game engines are. The benefit of using Xcode and the SpriteKit/SceneKit frameworks over those engines is that you have a dedicated design environment for a specific platform. In our case, that platform is iOS and the Apple family of devices. As iOS frequently updates and continues to give new features, Xcode and these frameworks will update with it. Updates to the multiplatform engines usually occur at a later date with sometimes the additional need to install plugins to ensure that your app runs smoothly in future updates.

In addition to the very dynamic and tool-rich DemoBots SpriteKit demo, the June 2015 World Wide Developer's Conference also introduced a wonderful SceneKit demo named Fox. The Fox demo also makes use of features introduced in iOS 9 that we can use for either SpriteKit or SceneKit, such as reusable actions, components, and state machines.

In this chapter, we will go over the basics of SceneKit and we will make a simple SceneKit scene (known as SCNScene) using both code and the visual design tools Xcode provides. We will then add physics, lights, and particles to our SceneKit objects and scene. We will then wrap up with a look into the WWDC15 Fox Demo and some of the features/APIs it uses, which became available in iOS 8 and iOS 9.

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