SCNText Not Displaying Emoji's - ARKit in Swift

Question

I'm making an app that adds an SCNText to the ARSCNView I've created called sceneView. The text displays perfectly like this: (when the SCNText(string: "Test", extrusionDepth: CGFloat(0.01))) screenshot1:

but when the SCNText(string: "Test😂", extrusionDepth: CGFloat(0.01)) The SCNText does not show the emoji:

screenshot2: This the complete code:

    import UIKit
    import SceneKit
    import ARKit

    import Vision

    class ViewController: UIViewController, ARSCNViewDelegate {

    @IBOutlet weak var sceneView: ARSCNView!

        override func viewDidLoad() {
            super.viewDidLoad()
            // Set the view's delegate
            sceneView.delegate = self

            // Show statistics such as fps and timing information
            sceneView.showsStatistics = true

            // Create a new scene

            let scene = SCNScene()
            // Set the scene to the view
            sceneView.scene = scene

            // Enable Default Lighting - makes the 3D text a bit poppier.
            sceneView.autoenablesDefaultLighting = true
            sceneView.showsStatistics = true

            // Tap Gesture Recognizer
            let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(self.handleTap(gestureRecognize:)))

            view.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)

        }

        override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
            super.viewWillAppear(animated)
            // Create a session configuration
            let configuration = ARWorldTrackingConfiguration()
            // Enable plane detection
            configuration.planeDetection = .horizontal

            // Run the view's session

            sceneView.session.run(configuration)
        }

        override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
            super.viewWillDisappear(animated)

            // Pause the view's session
            sceneView.session.pause()
        }
        // MARK: - ARSCNViewDelegate

        func renderer(_ renderer: SCNSceneRenderer, updateAtTime time: TimeInterval) {
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
            }

        }

        @objc func handleTap(gestureRecognize: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
            self.create()
        }

        func create() {
                // Get Screen Centre
                let screenCentre : CGPoint = CGPoint(x: self.sceneView.bounds.midX, y: self.sceneView.bounds.midY)

                let arHitTestResults : [ARHitTestResult] = sceneView.hitTest(screenCentre, types: [.featurePoint])

                if let closestResult = arHitTestResults.first {

                    // Get Coordinates of HitTest
                    let transform : matrix_float4x4 = closestResult.worldTransform

                    let worldCoord : SCNVector3 = SCNVector3Make(transform.columns.3.x, transform.columns.3.y, transform.columns.3.z)

                    // Create 3D Text
                    let node : SCNNode = createNewParentNode()
                    sceneView.scene.rootNode.addChildNode(node)
                    node.position = worldCoord
                }

            }

        func createNewParentNode(_ text : String) -> SCNNode {
                let text = SCNText(string: "Test😂", extrusionDepth: CGFloat(0.01))
                var font = UIFont(name: "Futura", size: 0.07)
                font = font?.withTraits(traits: .traitBold)
                text.font = font

                text.alignmentMode = kCAAlignmentCenter
                text.firstMaterial?.diffuse.contents = UIColor.orange
                text.firstMaterial?.specular.contents = UIColor.white
                text.firstMaterial?.isDoubleSided = true
                text.chamferRadius = CGFloat(bubbleDepth)

                let textNode = SCNNode(geometry: text)
               textNode.pivot = SCNMatrix4MakeTranslation( positionx, positiony, positionz) // Don't worry about the positions they work fine
                text.scale = SCNVector3Make(0.1, 0.1, 0.1)

                let NodeParent = SCNNode()
                NodeParent.addChildNode(text)

                //Add More SCNNode's to NodeParent

                return NodeParent

        }

}

extension UIFont {

    // Based on: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4713236/how-do-i-set-bold-and-italic-on-uilabel-of-iphone-ipad

    func withTraits(traits:UIFontDescriptorSymbolicTraits...) -> UIFont {
        let descriptor = self.fontDescriptor.withSymbolicTraits(UIFontDescriptorSymbolicTraits(traits))
        return UIFont(descriptor: descriptor!, size: 0)
    }
}

I don't want to have to add it as a SKLabelNode because I want to use the Storyboard for Collection Views later on.

Has it got something to do with the font I am using?

Answer 1

SCNText - developer.apple.com

"SceneKit can create text geometry using any font and style supported by the Core Text framework, with the exception of bitmap fonts (such as those that define color emoji characters)".

However, you can still put emoji's onto a SCNNode (say box) as material/texture.

Edit: I created a Country flag ios App using emoji's a few months ago which is a good demo Youtube video - Country Flags iOS App