Animating a CALayer sublayer

[yaris20]

Hi.

I'm trying to animate the sublayer of a UIView's layer with the following code:

CALayer *sublayer = [[CALayer alloc] init];
    [sublayer setFrame:myRect]; // myRect is a portion of the view's frame rectangle
    [self.layer addSublayer:sublayer];

    CABasicAnimation *anim = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"];
    anim.duration = 1.0f;
    anim.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1];
    anim.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:.5];
    anim.delegate = self;
    [sublayer addAnimation:anim forKey:@"animateOpacity"];

I don't understand why my sublayer doesn't animate since the code

[self.layer addAnimation:anim forKey:@"animateOpacity"];

does animate the view's main layer.

Thanks.

[Spike099]

Memory leak at line 1. Use this instead unless your releasing it later on in your code.

CALayer *sublayer = [[[CALayer alloc] init] autorelease];

Is your sublayer visible? When it appears, does it appear at 1 or 0.5 opacity?

[yaris20]

Thanks for your reply.

Originally Posted by Spike099

Memory leak at line 1. Use this instead unless your releasing it later on in your code.

CALayer *sublayer = [[[CALayer alloc] init] autorelease];

My sublayer is released later in the dealloc method.

Originally Posted by Spike099

Is your sublayer visible? When it appears, does it appear at 1 or 0.5 opacity?

My sublayer isn't visible even with the lines below :

[sublayer setHidden:FALSE];
[sublayer setNeedsDisplay];

[dejo]

Originally Posted by yaris20

My sublayer is released later in the dealloc method.

How does your dealloc method have a reference to your sublayer? You've created it as a local variable.

[yaris20]

Originally Posted by dejo

How does your dealloc method have a reference to your sublayer? You've created it as a local variable.

In fact my sublayer is an instance variable of a UIView class. I didn't want to write the whole code.

[dejo]

And you're sure the sublayer's frame is set as needed?

[yaris20]

Originally Posted by dejo

And you're sure the sublayer's frame is set as needed?

Yes. My sublayer's frame rectangle is (0.0f, 0.0f, 320.0f, 240.0f) its superlayer's is (0.0f, 0.0f, 320.0f, 480.0f).

[Spike099]

It sound like the layer isn't actually added as a sublayer.

Do this:

CALayer *parentLayer = self.layer;
self.sublayer = [CALayer layer]; // proper way to set your member var - assuming the setter retains
[sublayer setFrame:myRect];
[parentLayer addSublayer:sublayer];

// SET A BREAKPOINT HERE
// ensure parentLayer is a valid CALayer
// ensure sublayer.superlayer contains the address of parentLayer

CABasicAnimation *anim = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"];
anim.duration = 1.0f;
anim.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1];
anim.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:.5];
anim.delegate = self;
[sublayer addAnimation:anim forKey:@"animateOpacity"];

Let me know what happens.

[yaris20]

I have just solved the problem: my sublayer wasn't visible because it wasn't initialized with any content. I added the line

sublayer.backgroundColor = [[UIColor redColor] CGColor];

before setting the animation and it worked.