Is there a way to generate high resolution PNGs of iOS emoji?

Question

I have been able to find 160x160 pixel emoji PNGs from iOS (actually WhatsApp but they are roughly the same set). These only show up as 1x when I import them into XCode 7 though.

Is there a way using Photoshop / OS X or similar to create high-resolution (retina friendly even, if possible) Emoji for use in an iOS game utilizing SpriteKit to animate the emoji?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The "Apple Color Emoji" font that's used to render emoji in Mac OS X and iOS uses PNG bitmaps for the glyphs. The 160x160 graphics you've found are the largest ones available in the font — sorry! If you want something larger, you'll need to draw it yourself.

A tool to extract the images is available at: https://github.com/tmm1/emoji-extractor

Answer 2

If they don't need to be the Apple version, you can always download the collection of emoji from Emoji One. They're available in PNG and SVG formats under a Creative Commons Attribution license.