Animate Sprite From Tile Map - cocos2d-iphone

Question

I would like to animate a sprite at a specific location on an isometric tilemap. I can animate a sprite on a given layer, but not when its a sprite from a tilemap. For example the following works just fine:
// make a frame cache
CCSpriteFrameCache *frameCache = [CCSpriteFrameCache sharedSpriteFrameCache];
[frameCache addSpriteFramesWithFile:#"spellanim.plist" textureFile:#"spellanim.pvr.ccz"];
// create a sprite
CCSprite *effectSprite = [CCSprite spriteWithSpriteFrameName:#"spell_strength__33.png"];
// set sprite at center of screen
CGSize screenSize = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize];
effectSprite.position = CGPointMake(screenSize.width / 2, screenSize.height / 2);
// create animation using an animation helper (since animationWithName:delay:frames: will be deprecated)
CCAnimation *animation = [CCAnimation animationWithFrame:#"spell_strength__" frameCount:13 delay:0.3f startAt:33];
CCAnimate *animate = [CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:animation];
// run animation on sprite
[effectSprite runAction:animate];
// add sprite as a child of the layer
[self addChild:effectSprite];
Now the following does not work, I assume it has to do with how tile maps work (I get an assertion failure in CCSprite setTexture:):
// add one to x to offset the spell animation from the player
CGPoint tileCoord = CGPointMake(player.entityTileCoordinate.x + 1, player.entityTileCoordinate.y);
// get the effects layer from the tile map
CCTMXTiledMap *tileMap = (CCTMXTiledMap *)[[TileMapLayer sharedTileMapLayer] getChildByTag:TileMapNode];
CCTMXLayer *effectsLayer = [tileMap layerNamed:#"Effects"];
// get a sprite from the effects layer
CCSprite *effectSprite = [effectsLayer tileAt:CGPointMake(0, 0)];
// move the sprite to the desired location (this works just fine)
CGPoint pointPixel = [effectsLayer positionAt:tileCoord];
[effectSprite runAction:[CCMoveTo actionWithDuration:0.0f position:pointPixel]];
// now animate the sprite
CCSpriteFrameCache *frameCache = [CCSpriteFrameCache sharedSpriteFrameCache];
[frameCache addSpriteFramesWithFile:#"spellanim.plist" textureFile:#"spellanim.pvr.ccz"];
CCAnimation *animation = [CCAnimation animationWithFrame:#"spell_strength__" frameCount:13 delay:0.3f startAt:33];
CCAnimate *animate = [CCAnimate actionWithAnimation:animation];
[effectSprite runAction:animate];
My guess it is because the animation sprites aren't a part of the tile set for that layer of the tile map. Is there a way to dynamically add these animation sprites to some cache used to draw on that layer (basically modify the tile set at runtime)? Can I later then remove these sprites from that modified tile set? Is there still a 1024x1024 limitation when you modify a tileset at runtime?
At the end of the day I really want to be able to have an animated sprite move from one tile to another on the tile map but I'm just not sure how to do that in the most efficient way. It seems really clunky to have an effects layer on the tile map and a tile set with all spell animations (especially if you can't fit them in 1024x1024) as assembling an animation would be chaining together tile GID updates as the effect moves across the tile map.
I know I can do what I want when the layer isn't a part of a tilemap - I can animate and move a sprite using screen coordinates, but when what I know are tile coordinates, translating those to screen coordinates (if the tile is even visible on the screen) has evaded my understanding so far. How do you determine what tiles the screen can actually 'see'? What then is the pixel coordinate on the screen of a visible tile?
I appreciate any thoughts on how to go about this process.

Answer 1

what you guess is the real cuase of the problem, tile maps are created using spritebatchnode. spritebatchnode is just like a layer with higher performance that you can only add sprites to it but there is a single restriction all the sprites in a spritebatchnode must share their textures. so when you are trying to change a tile to show an animation you are trying to draw something from diffrent texture alongside other tiles (which have default tile texture) and it causes crashes or malfunctioning. i didn't test it myself but i think if you try putting all your frames in a same texture you put other tiles, the problem would be solved.