UPGRADE YOUR SKILLS: Learn advanced Swift and SwiftUI on Hacking with Swift+! >>

How to debug physics in a SpriteKit scene using showsPhysics

Swift version: 5.6

Paul Hudson    @twostraws   

SpriteKit’s SKView class has a few built-in debugging options, of which two are enabled by default: showsFPS to show the current frames per second, and showsNodeCount to show how many nodes are currently in your scene.

If you’re having trouble understanding the way your physics objects are behaving, you should enable the showsPhysics option on your view, like this:

skView.showsPhysics = true

You can put that into GameViewController.swift if you’re using Xcode’s default SpriteKit template, alongside showsFPS and showsNodeCount.

When set to true, showsPhysics will automatically draw blue lines around all your physics shapes, allowing you to see them in exactly the same way as the physics engine does. Hopefully you’ll be able to see where you’ve made a mistake and can correct it quickly!

Hacking with Swift is sponsored by Essential Developer

SPONSORED Join a FREE crash course for mid/senior iOS devs who want to achieve an expert level of technical and practical skills – it’s the fast track to being a complete senior developer! Hurry up because it'll be available only until April 28th.

Click to save your free spot now

Sponsor Hacking with Swift and reach the world's largest Swift community!

Available from iOS 8.0

Similar solutions…

About the Swift Knowledge Base

This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.

BUY OUR BOOKS
Buy Pro Swift Buy Pro SwiftUI Buy Swift Design Patterns Buy Testing Swift Buy Hacking with iOS Buy Swift Coding Challenges Buy Swift on Sundays Volume One Buy Server-Side Swift Buy Advanced iOS Volume One Buy Advanced iOS Volume Two Buy Advanced iOS Volume Three Buy Hacking with watchOS Buy Hacking with tvOS Buy Hacking with macOS Buy Dive Into SpriteKit Buy Swift in Sixty Seconds Buy Objective-C for Swift Developers Buy Beyond Code

Was this page useful? Let us know!

 
Unknown user

You are not logged in

Log in or create account
 

Link copied to your pasteboard.