SKTexture gradient

SpriteKit at times can seem a little rudimentary – small tasks can seem to take longer than they should! Today I ran into a limitation of SKShapeNodes – there doesn’t seem to be a default way to set up a gradient fill. I have created an extension to SKTexture to generate a gradient – you can then use this SKTexture in a SKShapeNode (fillTexture) or a SKSpriteNode.

Credit to an Objective C class developed by Joseph Preiss that I found here and heavily based my Swift version on. I made it an extension of SKTexture and added gradient direction.

enum GradientDirection {
    case up
    case left
    case upLeft
    case upRight
}
extension SKTexture {
    convenience init(size:CGSize,color1:CIColor,color2:CIColor,direction:GradientDirection = .up) {
        let coreImageContext = CIContext(options: nil)
        let gradientFilter = CIFilter(name: "CILinearGradient")
        gradientFilter.setDefaults()
        var startVector:CIVector
        var endVector:CIVector
        switch direction {
        case .up:
            startVector = CIVector(x: size.width/2, y: 0)
            endVector = CIVector(x: size.width/2, y: size.height)
        case .left:
            startVector = CIVector(x: size.width, y: size.height/2)
            endVector = CIVector(x: 0, y: size.height/2)
        case .upLeft:
            startVector = CIVector(x: size.width, y: 0)
            endVector = CIVector(x: 0, y: size.height)
        case .upRight:
            startVector = CIVector(x: 0, y: 0)
            endVector = CIVector(x: size.width, y: size.height)
            
        }
        gradientFilter.setValue(startVector, forKey: "inputPoint0")
        gradientFilter.setValue(endVector, forKey: "inputPoint1")
        gradientFilter.setValue(color1, forKey: "inputColor0")
        gradientFilter.setValue(color2, forKey: "inputColor1")
        let cgimg = coreImageContext.createCGImage(gradientFilter.outputImage, fromRect: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: size.width, height: size.height))
        self.init(CGImage:cgimg)
    }
}

About craiggrummitt

Interactive developer, Author - iOS development with Swift - book coming 2017 https://manning.com/books/ios-development-with-swift