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

I created a class inheriting from SKSpriteNode where it creates necessary SKLabelNode and 4 shadow labels according to the parameters passed to constructor.

You need to call the update() method when you changed any public property. (BorderSize more than 6-7 looks funny.)

import Foundation
import SpriteKit

class LFOutlinedLabel : SKSpriteNode {

    private let skewX : [CGFloat] = [-1, 1, 1,-1]
    private let skewY : [CGFloat] = [-1,-1, 1, 1]

    private var label : SKLabelNode = SKLabelNode()
    private var shadows : [SKLabelNode] = []

    public var borderOpacity : CGFloat = 1
    public var borderSize: CGFloat = 1
    public var borderColor: UIColor = UIColor.black
    public var text : String = "?"
    public var fontName : String = Fonts.OptimaExtraBlack.rawValue
    public var fontColor: UIColor = UIColor.white
    public var fontSize : CGFloat = 40

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)
        //self.setup()
    }

    override init(texture: SKTexture!, color: UIColor, size: CGSize) {
        super.init(texture: texture, color: color, size: size)
        //self.setup()
    }

    convenience init(size: CGSize, font: String, fSize: CGFloat, fColor: UIColor, bSize: CGFloat, bColor: UIColor, bOpacity: CGFloat)
    {
        self.init(texture: nil, color: UIColor.clear, size: size)
        self.fontName = font
        self.fontSize = fSize
        self.fontColor = fColor
        self.borderSize = bSize
        self.borderColor = bColor
        self.borderOpacity = bOpacity
        self.setup()
    }

    // create shadow labels
    private func setup() {
        if shadows.count == 0 {
            let width = self.size.width / 2
            let height = self.size.height / 2
            for j in 0...3 {
                let shadow = SKLabelNode(text: self.text)
                addChild(shadow)
                shadow.verticalAlignmentMode = .center
                shadow.horizontalAlignmentMode = .center
                shadow.zPosition = 999
                shadow.position = CGPoint(x: width + (skewX[j] * borderSize) , y: height + (skewY[j] * borderSize))
                shadow.text = self.text
                shadow.fontSize = self.fontSize
                shadow.fontName = self.fontName
                shadow.fontColor = borderColor
                shadows.append(shadow)
            }
            let label = SKLabelNode(text: self.text)
            addChild(label)
            label.verticalAlignmentMode = .center
            label.horizontalAlignmentMode = .center
            label.zPosition = 1000
            label.position = CGPoint(x: width , y: height )
            label.text = self.text
            label.fontSize = self.fontSize
            label.fontName = self.fontName
            label.fontColor = fontColor
            self.label = label
        }
    }

    public func update(){
        let width = self.size.width / 2
        let height = self.size.height / 2

        self.label.fontSize = fontSize
        self.label.fontName = fontName
        self.label.fontColor = fontColor
        self.label.verticalAlignmentMode = .center
        self.label.horizontalAlignmentMode = .center
        self.label.text = text
        self.label.position = CGPoint(x: width  , y: height )

        for i in 0...3 {
            shadows[i].verticalAlignmentMode = .center
            shadows[i].horizontalAlignmentMode = .center
            shadows[i].fontColor = borderColor
            shadows[i].fontSize = fontSize
            shadows[i].alpha = borderOpacity
            shadows[i].fontName = fontName
            shadows[i].text = text
            shadows[i].position = CGPoint(x: width + (skewX[i] * borderSize) , y: height + (skewY[i] * borderSize) )
        }
    }
}

the recent code can be found at https://gist.github.com/detaybey/214b23731a3b4d0344ce58643795f4b7