How to play animations in Cocos2d-x?

Question

I'm new to Cocos2d-x and looking for a good way/tutorial on how to play animations in Cocos2d-x.

Answer 1

Sprite animation is pretty simple. You just create a CCAnimation node, add the images to loop, then create an action using CCAnimate::actionWithDuration(float,CCAnimation,bool) and make the sprite run it.

Code snippet:

CCAnimation * anim = CCAnimation::animation();
// There are other several ways of storing + adding frames, 
// this is the most basic using one image per frame.
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear1.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear2.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear3.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear4.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear5.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear6.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear7.png");
anim->addFrameWithFileName("bear8.png");

CCAnimate *theAnim = CCAnimate::actionWithDuration(1.8f,anim,true); 
// Duration, animation action and bool to return to frame 1 after finishing.

CCSprite *bear = CCSprite::spriteWithFile("bear1.png");
addChild(bear,0); //Don't forget to add any sprite you use as a child to the CCLayer!
bear->runAction(theAnim);   

Answer 2

In new version of CoCos2dx you can use (it's working)

CCSpriteFrameCache* cache = CCSpriteFrameCache::sharedSpriteFrameCache();
cache->addSpriteFramesWithFile("numbers.plist","numbers.png");

CCSprite* sprite = CCSprite::createWithSpriteFrame(CCSpriteFrameCache::sharedSpriteFrameCache()->spriteFrameByName("slice2_0_0.png"));
sprite->setPosition(ccp(GameScene::windowSize.width/2,GameScene::windowSize.height/3));

CCSpriteBatchNode* spriteBatchNode = CCSpriteBatchNode::create("numbers.png");
spriteBatchNode->addChild(sprite);
addChild(spriteBatchNode);

CCArray* animFrames = CCArray::createWithCapacity(10);

char str[100] = {0};
for(int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
    sprintf(str, "slice2_0_%d.png", i);
    CCSpriteFrame* frame = cache->spriteFrameByName( str );
    animFrames->addObject(frame);
}
CCAnimation* animation = CCAnimation::createWithSpriteFrames(animFrames,1.f);
sprite->runAction(CCAnimate::create(animation) );

Answer 3

If you don't want to use a .plist file and want to continue with the Ef Es's answer with the current version of cocos2d-x, just change some lines as below:

    CCSprite * sprite  = CCSprite::create("bear1.png"); // NEW - create a sprite here
    CCAnimation * anim = CCAnimation::animation();
    // There are other several ways of storing + adding frames, 
    // this is the most basic using one image per frame.
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear1.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear2.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear3.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear4.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear5.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear6.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear7.png");
    anim->addSpriteFrameWithFileName("bear8.png");

    anim->setLoops(-1); // for infinit loop animation
    anim->setDelayPerUnit(0.1f); //Duration per frame
    //CCAnimate *theAnim = CCAnimate::actionWithDuration(1.8f,anim,true); // this wont work in newer version..

    sprite->runAction(CCAnimate::create(anim) );
    sprite->setPosition(ccp(200,200)); //set position of sprite in some visible area

    this->addChild(sprite, 1); // cross check the Z index = 1 with your code

I think this can be the solution for Ben's question also.