Core Animation layers have no depth. It's famously called "2D planes in space," which means the environment is 3D, but the layers themselves aren't. OpenGL is full 3D, and a far more flexible API in general. Of course, the tradeoff is that Core Animation is much easier to learn and is directly integrated with Cocoa.
So... Would it be fair to say that if you're doing a 2D game like galaga, then Core Animation might work well, but not if you're trying for a 3D game? I actually like 2D games, so that might be good news. :-)
by Mark Buckingham — Oct 05
Core Animation layers have no depth. It's famously called "2D planes in space," which means the environment is 3D, but the layers themselves aren't. OpenGL is full 3D, and a far more flexible API in general. Of course, the tradeoff is that Core Animation is much easier to learn and is directly integrated with Cocoa.
So... Would it be fair to say that if you're doing a 2D game like galaga, then Core Animation might work well, but not if you're trying for a 3D game? I actually like 2D games, so that might be good news. :-)