Apple introduced with iOS 5 an entire family of specialized layers, subclasses of the CALayer class: CAGradientLayer, CAShapeLayer, CAEmitterLayer.
Each of those classes has been designed for a very specific task. Particles can be used to create real-time animations for effects like fire, rain, snow, etc.
Wait… Particle what?
Well, It’s not that unknown. You’ve probably seen it already in many iOS apps.
The Keynote mac application has also a fire animation.
Facebook use it for its Facebook Live feature
Particle animations are made up of two components: CAEmitterLayer, and CAEmitterCell.
I like to think that it’s like a bread. You have the bread, which the the CAEmitterLayer and the breadcrumb, the CAEmitterCells.
CAEmitterLayer acts as a container for a collection of CAEmitterCell. CAEmitterCell determines how it looks and moves, how fast to create, how long the particles should live.
I think this is a really cool Core Animation tool you can use in your projects.
Released under the MIT License.
Copyright © Aymen Rebouh 🤡.