SKAction

SKAction is a class in the SpriteKit framework that represents an animation or motion to be performed by an SKNode. An action encapsulates changes to a node’s properties over a specified duration, enabling movement, rotation, scaling, fading, resizing, color changes, and more without manual frame-by-frame updates. Actions can be combined and reused to create complex animations.

Common single actions include moving a node to a position, moving by an offset, rotating by an angle, scaling to a factor, fading in or out, and resizing to a target size. There are also color and texture-related actions that adjust a node’s appearance over time. In addition to basic actions, SpriteKit provides path-following actions to move a node along a bezier or other path, and custom actions that execute code blocks over a duration.

Actions can be composed to run in sequence, in parallel as a group, or repeated a fixed number of times or indefinitely. Delays are supported with wait actions, and timing modes (linear, ease-in, ease-out, ease-in-ease-out) control animation pacing. Nodes can also carry a speed multiplier that affects all actions running on them, and actions can be given keys for later retrieval, pausing, or removal.

Execution is performed by calling a node’s run(action) method, optionally with a key or a completion block. Actions can be paused, resumed, or removed, and a node can finish multiple actions concurrently or in a defined order. SKAction provides a flexible, high-level approach to animating SpriteKit nodes without manual update loops.