Animation is an illusion that is created by quickly cycling through a series of images, each slightly different from the last. The brain perceives the group of images as a single changing scene. In film, this illusion is created by using cameras that record many photographs, or frames, each second. When the frames are played back by a projector, the audience sees a moving picture.

Animation on a computer is similar. For example, a program that makes a drawing of a rectangle fade out of view might work as follows.

• The program creates a timer.

• The program checks the timer at set intervals to see how much time has elapsed.

• Each time the program checks the timer, it computes the current opacity value for the rectangle based on how much time has elapsed.

• The program then updates the rectangle with the new value and redraws it.

Prior to WPF, Microsoft Windows developers had to create and manage their own timing systems or use special custom libraries. WPF includes an efficient timing system that is exposed through managed code and Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and that is deeply integrated into the WPF framework. WPF animation makes it easy to animate controls and other graphical objects.

WPF handles all the behind-the-scenes work of managing a timing system and redrawing the screen efficiently. It provides timing classes that enable you to focus on the effects you want to create, instead of the mechanics of achieving those effects. WPF also makes it easy to create your own animations by exposing animation base classes from which your classes can inherit, to produce customized animations. These custom animations gain many of the performance benefits of the standard animation classes.

If you understand a few important concepts about the timing system, WPF animations can be easier to use. Most important is that, in WPF, you animate objects by applying animation to their individual properties. For example, to make a framework element grow, you animate its Width and Height properties. To make an object fade from view, you animate its Opacity property.

For a property to have animation capabilities, it must meet the following three requirements:

• It must be a dependency property.

• It must belong to a class that inherits from DependencyObject and implements the IAnimatable interface.

• There must be a compatible animation type available. (If Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) does not provide one, you can create your own. See the Custom Animations Overview.)

WPF contains many objects that have animatable properties. Controls such as Button and TabControl, and also Panel and Shape objects inherit from DependencyObject. Most of their properties are dependency properties. 

You can use animations almost anywhere, which includes in styles and control templates. Animations do not have to be visual; you can animate objects that are not a part of the user interface as long as they meet the criteria that is described in this section.

This example shows how to use a WPF animation to animate the value of a dependency property. It uses a DoubleAnimation, which is a type of animation that generates Double values, to animate the Opacity property of a Rectangle. As a result, the Rectangle fades in and out of view.

The first part of the example creates a Rectangle element and displays it in a Page. The steps that follow show how to create an animation and apply it to the rectangle's Opacity property.

<Page
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  WindowTitle="Fading Rectangle Example">
  <StackPanel Margin="10">
    
    <Rectangle
      Name="MyRectangle"
      Width="100" 
      Height="100"
      Fill="Blue">
    </Rectangle> 
  </StackPanel>
</Page>

using System;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Animation;

namespace Microsoft.SDK.Animation
{
    public class RectangleOpacityFadeExample : Page
    {
        public RectangleOpacityFadeExample()
        {
            NameScope.SetNameScope(this, new NameScope());
            this.WindowTitle = "Fading Rectangle Example";
            StackPanel myPanel = new StackPanel();
            myPanel.Margin = new Thickness(10);
            
            Rectangle myRectangle = new Rectangle();
            myRectangle.Name = "myRectangle";
            this.RegisterName(myRectangle.Name, myRectangle);
            myRectangle.Width = 100;
            myRectangle.Height = 100;
            myRectangle.Fill = Brushes.Blue;
            myPanel.Children.Add(myRectangle);
            this.Content = myPanel; 
        }
    }
}

Part 1: Create a DoubleAnimation

Part 2: Create a Storyboard

<BeginStoryboard>
  <Storyboard>
    <DoubleAnimation
      Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
      Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
      From="1.0" To="0.0" Duration="0:0:5" 
      AutoReverse="True" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
  </Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>

Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(myDoubleAnimation, new PropertyPath(Rectangle.OpacityProperty));

Part 3 (XAML): Associate the Storyboard with a Trigger

<BeginStoryboard>
  <Storyboard>
    <DoubleAnimation
      Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
      Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
      From="1.0" To="0.0" Duration="0:0:5" 
      AutoReverse="True" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
  </Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>

<!-- Animates the rectangle's opacity. -->
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded">
  <BeginStoryboard>
    <Storyboard>
      <DoubleAnimation
        Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
        From="1.0" To="0.0" Duration="0:0:5" 
        AutoReverse="True" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
    </Storyboard>
  </BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>

<Rectangle
  Name="MyRectangle"
  Width="100" 
  Height="100"
  Fill="Blue">
  <Rectangle.Triggers>
    <!-- Animates the rectangle's opacity. -->
    <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded">
      <BeginStoryboard>
        <Storyboard>
          <DoubleAnimation
            Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
            Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
            From="1.0" To="0.0" Duration="0:0:5" 
            AutoReverse="True" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
        </Storyboard>
      </BeginStoryboard>
    </EventTrigger>
  </Rectangle.Triggers>
</Rectangle>

Part 3 (Code): Associate the Storyboard with an Event Handler

Complete Example

<Page
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  WindowTitle="Fading Rectangle Example">
  <StackPanel Margin="10">
    <Rectangle
      Name="MyRectangle"
      Width="100" 
      Height="100"
      Fill="Blue">
      <Rectangle.Triggers>
        <!-- Animates the rectangle's opacity. -->
        <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded">
          <BeginStoryboard>
            <Storyboard>
              <DoubleAnimation
                Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
                Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
                From="1.0" To="0.0" Duration="0:0:5" 
                AutoReverse="True" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
            </Storyboard>
          </BeginStoryboard>
        </EventTrigger>
      </Rectangle.Triggers>
    </Rectangle>
  </StackPanel>
</Page>

Because animations generate property values, different animation types exist for different property types. To animate a property that takes a Double, such as the Width property of an element, use an animation that produces Double values. To animate a property that takes a Point, use an animation that produces Point values, and so on. Because of the number of different property types, there are several animation classes in the System.Windows.Media.Animation namespace. Fortunately, they follow a strict naming convention that makes it easy to differentiate between them:

• <Type>Animation

  Known as a "From/To/By" or "basic" animation, these animate between a starting and destination value, or by adding an offset value to its starting value.

  • To specify a starting value, set the From property of the animation.

  • To specify an ending value, set the To property of the animation.

  • To specify an offset value, set the By property of the animation.

  The examples in this overview use these animations, because they are the simplest to use. From/To/By animations are described in detail in the From/To/By Animations Overview.

• <Type>AnimationUsingKeyFrames

  Key frame animations are more powerful than From/To/By animations because you can specify any number of target values and even control their interpolation method. Some types can only be animated with key frame animations. Key frame animations are described in detail in the Key-Frame Animations Overview.

• <Type>AnimationUsingPath

  Path animations enable you to use a geometric path in order to produce animated values.

• <Type>AnimationBase

  Abstract class that, when you implement it, animates a <Type> value. This class serves as the base class for <Type>Animation and <Type>AnimationUsingKeyFrames classes. You have to deal directly with these classes only if you want to create your own custom animations. Otherwise, use a <Type>Animation or KeyFrame<Type>Animation.

In most cases, you will want to use the <Type>Animation classes, such as DoubleAnimation and ColorAnimation.

The following table shows several common animation types and some properties with which they are used.

Animations Are Timelines

The previous sections describe the different types of animations and their timing properties. This section shows how to apply the animation to the property that you want to animate. Storyboard objects provide one way to apply animations to properties. A Storyboard is a container timeline that provides targeting information for the animations it contains.

Targeting Objects and Properties

Applying and Starting Storyboards

The previous example showed how to start a Storyboard when an event occurs. You can also interactively control a Storyboard after it starts: you can pause, resume, stop, advance it to its fill period, seek, and remove the Storyboard. For more information and an example that shows how to interactively control a Storyboard, see the Storyboards Overview.

The FillBehavior property specifies how a timeline behaves when it ends. By default, a timeline starts Filling when it ends. An animation that is Filling holds its final output value.

The DoubleAnimation in the previous example does not end because its RepeatBehavior property is set to Forever. The following example animates a rectangle by using a similar animation. Unlike the previous example, the RepeatBehavior and AutoReverse properties of this animation are left at their default values. Therefore, the animation progresses from 1 to 0 over five seconds and then stops.

<Rectangle
  Name="MyRectangle"
  Width="100" 
  Height="100"
  Fill="Blue">
  <Rectangle.Triggers>

    <!-- Animates the rectangle's opacity. -->
    <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded">
      <BeginStoryboard>
        <Storyboard>
          <DoubleAnimation
            Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" 
            Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
            From="1.0" To="0" Duration="0:0:5" />
        </Storyboard>
      </BeginStoryboard>
    </EventTrigger>
  </Rectangle.Triggers>
</Rectangle>

Because its FillBehavior was not changed from its default value, which is HoldEnd, the animation holds it final value, 0, when it ends. Therefore, the Opacity of the rectangle remains at 0 after the animation ends. If you set the Opacity of the rectangle to another value, your code appears to have no effect, because the animation is still affecting the Opacity property.

One way to regain control of an animated property in code is to use the BeginAnimation method and specify null for the AnimationTimeline parameter. For more information and an example, see How to: Set a Property After Animating It with a Storyboard.

Note that, although setting a property value that has an Active or Filling animation appears to have no effect, the property value does change. For more information, see the Animation and Timing System Overview.

Most animation properties can be data bound or animated; for example, you can animate the Duration property of a DoubleAnimation. However, because of the way the timing system works, data bound or animated animations do not behave like other data bound or animated objects. To understand their behavior, it helps to understand what it means to apply an animation to a property.

Refer to the example in the previous section that showed how to animate the Opacity of a rectangle. When the rectangle in the previous example is loaded, its event trigger applies the Storyboard. The timing system creates a copy of the Storyboard and its animation. These copies are frozen (made read-only) and Clock objects are created from them. These clocks do the actual work of animating the targeted properties.

The timing system creates a clock for the DoubleAnimation and applies it to the object and property that is specified by the TargetName and TargetProperty of the DoubleAnimation. In this case, the timing system applies the clock to the Opacity property of the object that is named "MyRectangle."

Although a clock is also created for the Storyboard, the clock is not applied to any properties. Its purpose is to control its child clock, the clock that is created for the DoubleAnimation.

For an animation to reflect data binding or animation changes, its clock must be regenerated. Clocks are not regenerated for you automatically. To make an animation reflect changes, reapply its storyboard by using a BeginStoryboard or the Begin method. When you use either of these methods, the animation restarts. In code, you can use the Seek method to shift the storyboard back to its previous position.

For an example of a data bound animation, see Key Spline Animation Sample. For more information about how the animation and timing system works, see Animation and Timing System Overview.

The examples in this overview show how to animate by using storyboards. When you use code, you can animate in several other ways. For more information, see the Property Animation Techniques Overview.

The following samples can help you start adding animation to your applications.

• Property Animation Sample

  Shows how to apply animations to framework elements and freezable objects.

• From, To, and By Animation Target Values Sample

  Demonstrates different From/To/By settings.

• Animation Timing Behavior Sample

  Demonstrates the different ways you can control the timing behavior of an animation. This sample also shows how to data bind the destination value of an animation.

Concepts

Reference