What would be the best approach for outlining or dropshadowing a font?

Question

I\'m not finding any support for dropshadow or outline of a font in Sprite Kit. For the dropshadow, I\'m guessing I could create a second SKLabelNode and offset it behind t

Answer 1

This worked for me:

http://battleofbrothers.com/sirryan/outline-text-in-spritekit

Here's the code I used in conjunction with ASAttributedLabelNode (some of it's specific to me like the font name/size/fillcolor/outlinecolor but of course just use your own):

func outlinedCenteredString(string : String, size: CGFloat) -> NSAttributedString
{
    var myMutableString : NSMutableAttributedString
    var font =  UIFont(name: "Super Mario 256", size: size)!
    var alignment : CTTextAlignment = CTTextAlignment.TextAlignmentCenter
    let alignmentSetting = [CTParagraphStyleSetting(spec: .Alignment, valueSize: Int(sizeofValue(alignment)), value: &alignment)]
    var paragraphRef = CTParagraphStyleCreate(alignmentSetting, 1)

    let textFontAttributes = [
        NSFontAttributeName : font,
        // Note: SKColor.whiteColor().CGColor breaks this
        NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.yellowColor(),
        NSStrokeColorAttributeName: UIColor.blackColor(),
        // Note: Use negative value here if you want foreground color to show
        NSStrokeWidthAttributeName:-3
        //,NSParagraphStyleAttributeName: paragraphRef
    ]

    myMutableString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: string, attributes: textFontAttributes as [NSObject : AnyObject])

    let para = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
    para.headIndent = 00
    para.firstLineHeadIndent = 00
    para.tailIndent = 0
    para.lineBreakMode = .ByWordWrapping
    para.alignment = .Center
    para.paragraphSpacing = 0
    myMutableString.addAttribute(
        NSParagraphStyleAttributeName,
        value:para, range:NSMakeRange(0,1))
    return myMutableString
}

along with the following to use this function:

    let hintSize = CGFloat(80.0)
    let hintLabel = ASAttributedLabelNode(size:CGSizeMake(playableRect.size.width*0.9, hintSize))

    hintLabel.attributedString = outlinedCenteredString("Touch the Rope to Release the Wood", size: hintSize)

    hintLabel.position =
        CGPointMake(
            size.width/2.0,
            ((size.height - playableRect.size.height)/2.0) + hintSize/2.0
    )

    hintLabel.zPosition = kHintZPosition
    addChild(hintLabel)