cocos2d for iPhone

A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine

1. 

   dalplatinum
   Member

   Hi.

   I'm fairly new to both Obj C and cocos2D, so I may well be making a schoolboy error here.

   I have an object in my game which is basically a button. You press the button, and it lights up for 5 seconds, then turns itself off. This all works by setting the power status to 'on', and opaque-ing an overlaying sprite. It then sets a schedule with a 5 second delay which runs a method that reverses the above. There is no problem with this at all, and I can click switches until the end of time, and they will always turn off after 5 seconds.

   Last night I started work on some AI. The AI calls the same function as me, and lights up the button, which does everything I expect it to. Except turn off. I've thrown a ton of NSLogs around to see what's being run, and it is definitely the right method on the right object. But it is not firing off the 5-second schedule.

   In enemy.m (the AI):
   - (void) hitNode:(int) target {
   Actuator *myActuator = [myRail compAtIndex:0];
   [myActuator powerIn];
   }

   and in Actuator.m (the switch):
   - (void) powerIn {
   [myNextNode powerIn:mainPower];
   [self doGlow:150];

   // This is the delay until powerdown.
   [self schedule: @selector(powerDown:) interval:5.0f];
   }

   - (void) powerDown:(ccTime)delta {
   NSLog(@"Powering Down");
   [myNextNode powerOff:mainPower];
   [self doGlow:0];
   [self unschedule:@selector(powerDown:)];
   }

   Now, if it didn't work at all, I would kind of understand, but it works fine for me, and never for the AI object. I put an NSLog in the powerIn method below the scheduler line, and when the enemy activates the button, I get that log message, and so do I. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything with the scheduler.

   When it works, there is a method the Actuator class where, on ccTouchEnded, it calls [self powerIn], which does it's thing, and sets the scheduler.

   What in the world did I do wrong? I know my AI isn't clever enough to cheat :)

   I'm gonna keep hammering at this, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it.

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   Codemattic
   Moderator

   Maybe your AI is self-aware and no longer wants to light up the button?

   In enemy.m (the AI):
   

   - (void) hitNode:(int) target {
    Actuator *myActuator = [myRail compAtIndex:0];
    NSLog([myActuator description]); // check what myActuator is
    [myActuator powerIn];
   }

   and in Actuator.m (the switch):
   

   - (void) powerIn {
    NSLog([myNextNode description]); // check what myNextNode is
    [myNextNode powerIn:mainPower];
    [self doGlow:150];
   
    // This is the delay until powerdown.
    [self schedule: @selector(powerDown:) interval:5.0f];
   }

   but probably we will need more code to see what it is.

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   dalplatinum
   Member

   I actually stripped all the logging code out of the example, for the sake of brevity, but it does the same thing you suggest. Actuator comes back as an Actuator, and nextNode comes back with the next node. And the doGlow works, and it works on the subsequent nodes, too, so that's all working well.

   In fact, the communications aspect is fine. The powerIn method gets called as expected, and returns the correct log, but the scheduler just doesn't seem to be initialising.

   Is there any way I can verify that the scheduler line is being run? I've put logs both before and after it, so as far as I can tell, it should be running. After all, it runs perfectly well when I click the button that calls powerIn.

   I know it's finding the right object, because the target object does half of what it's supposed to. It's just skipping the schedule, or possibly firing off the schedule, and something is cancelling it. Is there any way I can keep tabs on the schedule call?

   Posted 2 years ago #
4. 

   dalplatinum
   Member

   Hah, I had just written out a long post detailing all the stuff I've tried, and while copying text to paste in, I found the error.

   The button node has a touchDispatcher connection, but only one side of the board needs buttons. To get around this, I added an IF statement around the line to add the node to the touchDispatcher in onEnter for the buttons on the 'enemy' side.

   What I hadn't noticed is that I had also put the [super onEnter] inside the statement. Because of this, the cocosnode didn't activate the 'isRunning' ivar as it should in the class method. The scheduler method checks this before it adds the timer to the item.

   I pulled the [super onEnter] out of the if statement, and what do you know, it works perfectly.

   Now I feel like a bit of a spanner. Although, now I'm a slightly wiser spanner.

   I hope this helps someone else :)

   Posted 2 years ago #
5. 

   Codemattic
   Moderator

   glad I could be your rubber duck debugger!

   Posted 2 years ago #
6. 

   teedr
   Member

   Hey guys

   I seem to be having a very very similar problem

   I have several children (sprites) added to a layer
   For simplicity, I will describe the layer as follows:
   - A player can move a sprite by touching and "dragging" it around the screen
   so in ccTouchesEnded, any lines of code are inside an if(startMove) statement

   At some (seemingly random) times- if I touch a part of the screen that doesn't have any sprites and then end the touch, a sprite's isRunning ivar will be set to NO

   I don't fully understand what could be happening here

   I see that in onEnter, the isRunning ivar is set, but I am adding the sprites to a layer with [self addChild:sprite]
   and removing with [self removeChild:sprite withCleanUp:YES]

   when could isRunning be manipulated...since it seems as though nothing should be happening in ccTouchesEnded when I am not dragging a sprite...

   any help is greatly appreciated

   Posted 2 years ago #

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