How do I create a looping video material in SceneKit on iOS in Swift 3?

Question

How do I create a material in SceneKit that plays a looping video?

Answer 1

It is possible to use an AVPlayer as the content of the scene's background. However, it was not working for me until I sent .play(nil) to the sceneView.

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(named: "art.scnassets/ship.scn")!

    // create and add a camera to the scene
    let cameraNode = SCNNode()
    cameraNode.camera = SCNCamera()
    scene.rootNode.addChildNode(cameraNode)

    // Set the scene to the view
    sceneView.scene = scene

    let movieFileURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "example", withExtension: "mov")!
    let player = AVPlayer(url:movieFileURL)
    scene.background.contents = player
    sceneView.play(nil) //without this line the movie was not playing

    player.play()
}