Proper transition between SpriteKit Animations

Question

I have an idle player animation and I want to do a smooth transition between some animations. The idle animation is the default one and from that transition I want to be able to switch to another state(let's say fight) and then back to idle. The code for the idle character animation is currently like :

self.addChild(playerAnimation)
playerAnimation.runAction(SKAction.repeatActionForever(
            SKAction.animateWithTextures(playerAnimationManager.idleManAnimation.textureArray, timePerFrame: 0.1)))

Now, this is scheduled to go on forever for now, but I would need to intercept it and add a new animation on top of that (which is the same character, in a new state). I was thinking that I should stop the idle animation, switch to the new one and then back to idle when finished but I am not convinced that this is the best way of chaining animations and I haven't really found a good resource explaining how to go about it.

Any suggestions ? Thanks !

Answer 1

Depending on how short your texture array is, you might be able to do this.

I will try to explain without code seeing how I use objective C and you use Swift

1. First make a property or variable that can be called by any subroutine in this class file. It should be Boolean and should be set to NO. You could call it idleFlag.

2. Next make a method that changes the animation to fight mode. This change would be by removing the idle animation and replacing it with the fight animation. This method also set's idleFlag to NO. Let's call the method "beginFightAnim"

3. And last, in your repeatActionForEver idle animation, right after your animateWithTextures animation, add a runBlock animation. In this block define a static variable (one that will be remembered in the calling of the block over and over) and increment it by +1, add an "if statement" that looks something like this -> if (my_static_var == number_of_frames_in_texture_animations && idleFlag). And in the "if statement" set the static variable to 0 and call "beginFightAnim"

After this all you have to do to change the animation is set idleFlag to YES.

Hope it works!

If you have any problems, please comment below.