Introduction to CCSpriteFrameCache

Although it is possible to reuse the cocos2d v0.8 animation code, v0.99 introduces a new way to deal with animations (and sprites in general).

v0.99 has a new class named CCSpriteFrameCache that, as the name suggests, it is the cache of all the sprite frames.
You can load sprites frames to the CCSpriteFrameCache with:

• a plist filename (generated by Zwoptex editor)
• a plist filename (generated by Zwoptex editor) and a CCTexture2D
• a CCSpriteFrame and a sprite frame name

( See the full API here: CCSpriteFrameCache API )

And the CCSpriteFrame object has the following properties:

• a CCTexture2D: which texture should it use.
• a CGRect: the rectangle of the texture (from 1 texture you can create many CCSpriteFrame objects, in fact it is the recommend way to avoid wasting unnecessary memory).

Example:

// Obtain the shared instance of the cache
CCSpriteFrameCache *cache = [CCSpriteFrameCache sharedSpriteFrameCache;
 
// load the frames
[cache addSpriteFramesWithFile:@"frames.plist"];
 
// It loads the frame named "frame1.png".
// IMPORTANT: It doesn't load the image "frame1.png". "frama1.png" is a just the name of the frame
CCSpriteFrame *frame = [cache spriteFrameByName:@"frame1.png"];
[sprite setDisplayFrame:frame];

This was just an introduction to CCSpriteFrameCache.

For further info, please read

• hhamm’s Programming iPhone Games with Cocos2D Part 3
• cocos2d programming guide: Animations