Cocos2d: How do I generate a texture, sprite, or image from a 2D array?

Question

I have a 256x256 array of doubles representing a height map which I use for random terrain generation. Currently I display the terrain in a horribly inefficient manner by creating a single pixel sprite for each element in the array and coloring it accordingly. This leaves me with 256x256 sprites, I would of course like to find a way to render a texture or create a sprite or image from this array rather than having to deal with so many tiny sprites. Is there a way to accomplish this in Cocos2d (Cocos2d-x specifically)? I haven't been able to find anything myself.

Answer 1

In cocos2d-iphone you could use [CCTexture2D initWithData:pixelFormat:pixelsWide:pixelsHigh:contentSize:] to create a texture. And then use [CCSprite spriteWithTexture:] to create a sprite. There should be corresponding methods in cocos2d-x

Create your data buffer like this, for pixelFormat kCCTexture2DPixelFormat_RGBA8888:

int width = 256;
int height = 256;
GLubyte *buffer = malloc(sizeof(GLubyte)*4*256);
for (int x=0; x<width; x++) {
    for (int y=0; y<height; y++) {
    // convert your doubles to pixels, here I just create a white pixel value
        for (int i=0;i<4;i++) {
            buffer[x*width*4+y*4+i]=255;
        }
    }
}

Then create your sprite with the methods mentioned above.