How to change a sprite’s texture using SKTexture

Swift version: 5.1

Paul Hudson    @twostraws    May 28th 2019

Although you can create an SKSpriteNode from a color and size, most folks create them from textures – image data stored in an asset catalog or texture atlas. SpriteKit’s textures are handled using their own class called SKTexture, and you can load them individually then use them to change the texture used to draw a sprite.

At its most basic, you can change a sprite’s texture like this:

let texture1 = SKTexture(imageNamed: "newTexture")
someSprite.texture = texture1

However, that only works if your sprite and the texture are the same size – if they don’t, the texture will get squashed to fit the available space.

If the sprite and texture are different sizes then a better thing to do is use the setTexture() action, passing in true for its resize parameter like this:

let texture2 = SKTexture(imageNamed: "newTexture")
let action = SKAction.setTexture(texture2, resize: true)
someSprite.run(action)

That will switch the texture over, then grow the sprite to fit the new texture size.

Available from iOS 7.1

Similar solutions…

• How to create a SpriteKit texture atlas in Xcode
• How to warp a sprite using SKWarpGeometryGrid
• How to crop a sprite using SKCropNode
• How to make one sprite draw in front of another using zPosition
• How to make a sprite follow a path

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