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Composition Animations in XAML

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Warning

These animation types have been updated with some breaking changes, please refer to the docs for the AnimationSet and ImplicitAnimationSet types. For a comprehensive list of all the available APIs, use the .NET API browser instead.

Composition animations in the universal windows platform provide a powerful and efficient way to run animations in your application UI and have been designed to ensure that your animations run at 60 FPS independent of the UI thread.

These XAML elements enable developer to specify composition animations directly in their XAML code to enable scenarios such as Implicit animations

Syntax

<Page ...
     xmlns:animations="using:Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Animations"/>

<animations:ScalarAnimation Target="Translation.Y" Duration="0:0:1" From="0" To="-200">
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.1" Value="30"></animations:ScalarKeyFrame>
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.5" Value="0.0"></animations:ScalarKeyFrame>
</animations:ScalarAnimation>

Animations

Animation Types

Animation Type Accepted KeyFrame type Description
ScalarAnimation ScalarKeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Animation that animates a scalar (double) value
Vector2Animation Vector2KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Animation that animates a value of type Vector2 ("0" or "0, 0")
Vector3Animation Vector3KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Animation that animates a value of type Vector3 ("0" or "0, 0, 0")
Vector4Animation Vector4KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Animation that animates a value of type Vector4 ("0" or "0, 0, 0, 0")
OpacityAnimation ScalarKeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame ScalarAnimation where `Target = "Opacity". Animates the Visual.Opacity property
RotationAnimation ScalarKeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame ScalarAnimation where `Target = "RotationAngle". Animates the Visual.RotationAngle property
RotationInDegreesAnimation ScalarKeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame ScalarAnimation where `Target = "RotationAngleInDegrees". Animates the Visual.RotationAngleInDegrees property
ScaleAnimation Vector3KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Vector3Animation where `Target = "Scale". Animates the Visual.Scale property
TranslationAnimation Vector3KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Vector3Animation where `Target = "Translation". Animates the Visual.Translation property
OffsetAnimations Vector3KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame Vector3Animation where `Target = "Offset". Animates the Visual.Offset property

Animation Properties

Property Type Description
Duration TimeSpan The duration of the animation. Default is 400ms
Delay TimeSpan The delay before starting the animation. Default is 0ms
KeyFrames KeyFrameCollection Key frames for the animation. Each animation will only use the appropriate type KeyFrame and ExpressionKeyFrame
Target string The property to animate
ImplicitTarget string The property that, if changed, will invoke this animation. This property is only used when specifying Implicit Animations. If this value is not set, it will default to the Target property
From T Setting this value will insert a new key frame at Key 0
To T Setting this value will insert a new key frame at Key 1

KeyFrames

KeyFrames permit more than one target value that is reached at a point along the animation timeline. In other words each key frame can specify a different intermediate value.

KeyFrame Types

KeyFrame Type Description
ExpressionKeyFrame A KeyFrame of type string
ScalarKeyFrame A KeyFrame of type double
Vector2KeyFrame A KeyFrame of type string representing a Vector2 ("0" or "0, 0")
Vector3KeyFrame A KeyFrame of type string representing a Vector3 ("0" or "0, 0, 0")
Vector4KeyFrame A KeyFrame of type string representing a Vector4 ("0" or "0, 0, 0, 0")

KeyFrame Properties

Property Type Description
Key double A value between 0.0 and 1.0
Value T The value that should be reached at specified Key

AnimationCollection

A collection of animations.

AnimationCollection Properties

Property Type Description
ContainsTranslationAnimation bool True if any of the animations in the collection target the Visual.Translation property

AnimationCollection Events

Events Description
AnimationCollectionChanged Raised when an animation has been added, removed, or a value of an animation has changed

Examples

Note

Use Implicit Composition Animations in XAML to run these animations.

Let's create some plain animation first. Theses animation will run when the Target property is changed.

  • Creating a ScalarAnimation. ScalarAnimation can target Opacity, RotationAngle, RotationAngleInDegrees, Translation.X, Translation.Y, Translation.Z.

    <animations:ScalarAnimation Target="Opacity" Duration="0:0:1" From="0" To="1"/>

  • Creating a Vector2Animation. Vector2Animation can target AnchorPoint, RelativeSizeAdjustment, Size.

    <animations:Vector2Animation Target="AnchorPoint" Duration="0:0:1" From="0, 0" To="50, 50"/>

  • Creating a Vector3Animation. Vector3Animation can target CenterPoint, Offset, RelativeOffsetAdjustment, RotationAxis, Scale, Translation.

    <animations:Vector3Animation Target="CenterPoint" Duration="0:0:1" From="0, 0, 0" To="50, 50, 50"/>

  • Creating a animation that takes final value as To value. If you didn't set From/To value or any KeyFrames then in this case, an ExpressionKeyFrame will be added of Value="this.FinalValue".

    <animations:OffsetAnimations Duration="0:0:1"/>

    Note

    OffsetAnimations is equivalent to setting Target = "Offset" in Vector3Animation. So there is no Target property.

  • Creating an animation which runs when another property changes. You can use ImplicitTarget. Whenever ImplicitTarget property changes the animation will run. In this example, if Offset changes then the ScaleAnimation will run.

    <animations:ScaleAnimation Duration="0:0:1" To="50, 50, 50" ImplicitTarget="Offset"/>

    Note

    If ImplicitTarget is set then the animation will no longer run when Target property is changed.

Now we can add KeyFrames

  • Creating a blink and disappear animation with OpacityAnimation. To create a blink animation, we need to reduce and increase the opacity.

    <animations:OpacityAnimation Duration="0:0:1" From="1" To="0">
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.2" Value="0.5"/>
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.4" Value="0.8"/>
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.6" Value="0.3"/>
    <animations:ScalarKeyFrame Key="0.8" Value="0.6"/>
</animations:OpacityAnimation>

    Sample Output Example Output

  • You can use ExpressionKeyFrame to specify expression to create ExpressionAnimation.

    <animations:OffsetAnimation Duration="0:0:1">
    <animations:ExpressionKeyFrame Key="0.2" Value="This.FinalValue / 2"/>
</animations:OffsetAnimation>

Sample Code

Implicit Composition Animations in XAML sample page source. You can see this in action in Windows Community Toolkit Sample App.

Requirements

Device family Universal, 10.0.16299.0 or higher
Namespace Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Animations
NuGet package Microsoft.Toolkit.Uwp.UI.Animations

API