How to create a stroke on a CCLabelTTF

Question

I have been looking for the past couple of hours for a way to create a stroke around labels in cocos2d but so far all I have come up with is this: CCLabelTTF Font Stroke Demo this is just what I need but the stroke looks very blocky, and I am needing something that looks smoother. Is there any way to turn on some kind of antialiasing for the stroke or maybe there is some other way to create a stroke. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

To create a stroke:

-(CCRenderTexture*) createStroke: (CCLabelTTF*) label   size:(float)size   color:(ccColor3B)cor
{
    CCRenderTexture* rt = [CCRenderTexture renderTextureWithWidth:label.texture.contentSize.width+size*2  height:label.texture.contentSize.height+size*2];
    CGPoint originalPos = [label position];
    ccColor3B originalColor = [label color];
    BOOL originalVisibility = [label visible];
    [label setColor:cor];
    [label setVisible:YES];
    ccBlendFunc originalBlend = [label blendFunc];
    [label setBlendFunc:(ccBlendFunc) { GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE }];
    CGPoint bottomLeft = ccp(label.texture.contentSize.width * label.anchorPoint.x + size, label.texture.contentSize.height * label.anchorPoint.y + size);
    //CGPoint positionOffset = ccp(label.texture.contentSize.width * label.anchorPoint.x - label.texture.contentSize.width/2,label.texture.contentSize.height * label.anchorPoint.y - label.texture.contentSize.height/2);
    //use this for adding stoke to its self...
    CGPoint positionOffset= ccp(-label.contentSize.width/2,-label.contentSize.height/2);

    CGPoint position = ccpSub(originalPos, positionOffset);

    [rt begin];
    for (int i=0; i<360; i+=60) // you should optimize that for your needs
    {
        [label setPosition:ccp(bottomLeft.x + sin(CC_DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(i))*size, bottomLeft.y + cos(CC_DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(i))*size)];
        [label visit];
    }
    [rt end];
    [[[rt sprite] texture] setAntiAliasTexParameters];//THIS
    [label setPosition:originalPos];
    [label setColor:originalColor];
    [label setBlendFunc:originalBlend];
    [label setVisible:originalVisibility];
    [rt setPosition:position];
    return rt;
}

Usage:

CCRenderTexture* myStroke = [self createStroke:myCCLabelTTF size:myStrokeSize color:ccYELLOW];
[myCCLabelTTF addChild:myStroke z:-1 tag:kTagStroke];

And to increase smoothness, modify the following function to fit your needs (decrease the +60 increment to perhaps +30). Just note that the more iterations, the more more time spent rendering, which will negatively affect performance:

for (int i=0; i<360; i+=60) // you should optimize that for your needs
    {
        [label setPosition:ccp(bottomLeft.x + sin(CC_DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(i))*size, bottomLeft.y + cos(CC_DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(i))*size)];
        [label visit];
    }