cocos2d-iphone: init method does not work properly - cocos2d-iphone

Question

I'm studying Strougo/Wenderlich tutorial (space Viking project). I got troubles with chapter 4.
In RadarDish.m:
-(void)initAnimations
{
[self setTransmittingAnim: [self loadPlistForAnimationWithName:#"transmittingAnim" andClassName:NSStringFromClass([self class])]];
}
-(void)changeState:(CharacterStates)newState {
[self stopAllActions];
id action = nil;
[self setCharacterState:newState];
switch (newState) {
.
.
case kStateIdle:
action = [CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:transmittingAnim
restoreOriginalFrame:NO];
break; }
if (action != nil) {
[self runAction:action];
}
}
-(id)init
{
self=[super init];
if (self!=nil) {
.
.
[self initAnimations];
.
.
}
return self;
}
Exact the same code as in the tutorial. Failure:
*** Assertion failure in -[CCAnimate initWithAnimation:], /Users/macowner/Documents/examples/SpaceViking/SpaceViking/libs/cocos2d/CCActionInterval.
Using debugger with breakpoints, i noticed that value of transmittingAnim = nil.
So, if i put line with
[self setTransmittingAnim:
[self loadPlistForAnimationWithName:#"transmittingAnim" andClassName:NSStringFromClass([self class])]];
into case of
-(void)changeState then animation works correctly.
Why [self initAnimations] from (id)init is not called?
Im using cocos2d v.2 templates.
Great thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I had problems because I have been building project using cocos 2d v.2.0, while tutorial is based on cocos 2d templates v.1.x.x If you are going to follow the book "Learning Cocos2D", I strongly recommend you loading cocos2d-iphone version 1.0.1. Here is the link download cocos2d 1.x.x branch
if you still want to use latest cocos2d templates, I can give you some advice:
Follow the instructions in this link cocos2d v2.0 migration guide
You are going to have a lot of deprecations and changes to fix, so use this link to understand how to fix those deprecations and changes.
Now few words about the solution of the problem I mentioned here. In each of the GameObjects, EnemyObjects, and PowerUps, I added a method to override initWithFrameName.
-(id) initWithSpriteFrameName:(NSString*)frameName{
if ((self=[super init])) {
if ((self = [super initWithSpriteFrameName:frameName])) {
CCLOG(#"### RadarDish initialized");
[self initAnimations]; // 1
characterHealth = 100.0f; // 2
gameObjectType = kEnemyTypeRadarDish; // 3
[self changeState:kStateSpawning]; // 4
}
}
return self;
}
    This allows the GameObject and GameCharacter init methods to run before the CCSprite's initWithSpriteFrameName method to run.
    
    The Viking GameObject had to have a slightly different solution because it is initialized with initWithSpriteFrame rather than initWithSpriteFrameName. However, the override implementation is basically the same as the example of RadarDish above.