A Sprite Sheet is of course a Texture Atlas (see Wikipedia). Simple, right?
Oh you wanted to know details? Like, why you should use sprite sheets? What the benefits are? How sprite sheets save memory?
Then watch the vividly animated “Sprite Sheets - The Movie, Part 1” (aka Essential Facts Every Game Developer Should Know) courtesy of Andreas Löw:
You can find the transcript of the video on this page and the tool that can do all that (and more) is TexturePacker.
Enabling ARC in a Cocos2D project isn’t as straightforward as it should be. I already explained all the necessary steps and precautions in the Enable ARC in a Cocos2D Project guide.
For this post I wanted to actually show you what’s needed to enable ARC in a cocos2d project as a video. Because it may not be as complex as you think. And because I wanted to experiment making tutorial videos. If you like the video (please let me know in the comments), there will be more video tutorials in the future!
I understand the introduction is a bit lengthy, I should have gotten to the point quicker. Feel free to skip forward to 02:20 where I begin with the instructions.
Easter surprise: Learn Cocos2D (the Book) is going to have a 3rd edition! To be released around August 2012 it will be updated to cocos2d 2.0, compatible with Kobold2D and the source code uses ARC throughout.
I apologize for this episode being 50% shorter due to Easter holidays.
• Learn Cocos2D (the Book) v3
o cocos2d v2.0
o Kobold2D compatible
o 100% ARC and Blocks explained
• iDevBlogADay: Enable ARC in a Cocos2D Project
o Coming Soon: Cocos2D with ARC Video Tutorial
• NameChanger, free renaming tool
In this episode you can see the Cocos2D Webcam Viewer in action. I also show you how to update a sprite’s texture while your app is running just by saving an updated version of the image, and how cool that actually is!
The second half of the video is devoted to explaining my work schedule. I’d like to believe that I have a unique and interesting solution to planning but I’m sure in some way or another it’s already been implemented.
I’m certainly influenced by Agile Development as much as I am by books like Getting Things Done and The 4-Hour Workweek. My revelation was simply this: stop wasting time planning tasks! Instead, plan your time and how you spend it.
Episode #4 - I see Road Nuts
• iDevBlogADay: Cocos2D Webcam Viewer
o Mac OS X Webserver File Download
• Kobold2D v1.0.2 released
• Poll: Which scripting language for Cocos2D?
• My work schedule explained
LearnCocosTV is sort of like a personal sprint review presentation but in video form.
I think that just writing about what I’ve done recently would be rather dull, whereas a bi-weekly Show & Tell video would not only be more interesting, it is also much more encouraging for me to create something cool to show in the first place!
Each episode will update you about what I’ve done for or with Cocos2D, Kobold2D and iOS/OSX development in general, what I’ve learned in the process and what the end results are. Here’s episode one, I hope you’ll enjoy it:
LearnCocosTV - Episode 1: How I maed your Kobold
• Kobold2D 1.0 Released
• Kobold2D source code published on github
• First Kobold2D games published on App Store
• Kobold2D Server moved
• iDevBlogADay: How to use CCRenderTexture…
And no, I’m most certainly not going to run out of TV Show titles to vilify. 😀
PS: in case you’re wondering, the video was created with ScreenFlow 3.0.
I recorded a screencast to give you a first impression of the current alpha version of Kobold2D. I’ll show you what is is, what it includes (so far) and how it improves the cocos2d development process.
Since recording the screencast I’ve added the Doodle Drop project from the book as an iOS game template project. I also added the Box2D & Chipmunk physics projects from the book and improved them to work on both iOS and Mac OS X.
Update
Here’s a screenshot showing the current list of template projects (Hello Kobold2D, Hello Cocos3D, Hello Cocos2D-X, Physics Box2D, Physics Chipmunk, Physics Chipmunk SpaceManager, Doodle Drop) and the Doodle Drop template running:
How did they make the animated water in the background of Wheeler’s Treasure? That’s probably a question you’ve never asked yourself but it’s in fact a very interesting process that one of the developers explains in this video:
The original post on the Two Lives Left blog, dubbed: The cool effect that no one noticed includes the download of the water texture.
This is worth pointing out: paulsondev (who unfortunately has no About page on his blog, hint hint ;)) posted a 90-minute (!) Tutorial about creating a scrolling Tilemap with TMX and cocos2d for iPhone! I haven’t watched it but anyone who is dedicated to make a 90 minute development video deserves attention. And as far as i can tell it’s pretty cool. Plus he uses the same desktop background as i do. 
