How to emit particles using SKEmitterNode

Paul Hudson    September 15th 2016    @twostraws

SpriteKit has built-in support for particle systems, which are a realistic and fast way to create effects such as smoke, fire and snow. Even better, Xcode has a built-in visual particle editor so that you can tweak your designs until they look exactly right.

To get started, right-click on your project in Xcode and choose New File. Select iOS > Resource > SpriteKit Particle File, then choose the Smoke template and click Next to name your effect. Once that's done, your particle will be opened immediately in the visual editor so you can adjust its design.

When it comes to using your effect, just create a new SKEmitterNode object using the name of your particle effect, like this:

if let particles = SKEmitterNode(fileNamed: "yourParticleFile.sks") {
    particles.position = player.position
    addChild(particles)
}

Obviously you will want to set your own position rather than using an example player node.

Available from iOS 7.0 – see Hacking with Swift tutorial 11

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