Core Animation: Simplified Animation Techniques – Book Review
Core Animation is a topic that I’ve brought up a few times showing some code snippets for simple animation effects, and talking about how it could be used in simple games. Unfortunately the amount of material available covering Core Animation has been somewhat lacking, and nothing especially specifically covering iPhone OS 3. Fortunately Core Animation: Simplified Animation Techniques For Mac And iPhone Development was released in Late 2009 that covers this topic in more depth.
iPhone Game Development With Core Animation
I’ve made quite a few posts about OpenGL ES, and the available game engines on the iPhone, and I’d like to iterate that you do not need to use OpenGL ES or any game engine. Core Animation can be used for iPhone game development, and if you’re used to Objective-C/Cocoa it may be the easiest route.
iPhone Game Programming: CoreAnimation vs. OpenGL ES
I saw an interesting question being asked by an aspiring iPhone game developer, "Should I use CoreAnimation or OpenGL ES?".
Simple answer:
Core Animation is fine for games where performance is not critical, and for new programmers will likely be easy to use, OpenGL is needed for anything else.
Long Answer:
Core Animation utilizes OpenGL ES, it is high level, and in my testing works fine in situations where performance is critical.