Property animation

All numeric properties (numbers, vector3, vector4 and quaterions) and shader constants can be animated with the built-in animation system, using the function go.animate(). The engine will automatically “tween” properties for you according to given playback modes and easing functions. You can also specify custom easing functions.

Property animation Bounce loop

Property animation

To animate a game object or component property, use the function go.animate(). For GUI node properties, the corresponding function is gui.animate().

-- Set the position property y component to 200
go.set(".", "position.y", 200)
-- Then animate it
go.animate(".", "position.y", go.PLAYBACK_LOOP_PINGPONG, 100, go.EASING_OUTBOUNCE, 2)

To stop all animations of a given property, call go.cancel_animations(), or for GUI nodes, gui.cancel_animation():

-- Stop euler z rotation animation on the current game object
go.cancel_animations(".", "euler.z")

If you cancel the animation of a composite property, like position, any animations of the sub-components (position.x, position.y and position.z) will be cancelled as well.

The Properties Manual contains all the available properties on game objects, components and GUI nodes.

GUI node property animation

Almost all GUI node properties are possible to animate. You can, for instance, make a node invisible by setting its color property to full transparency and then fade it into view by animating the color to white (i.e. no tint color).

local node = gui.get_node("button")
local color = gui.get_color(node)
-- Animate the color to white
gui.animate(node, gui.PROP_COLOR, vmath.vector4(1, 1, 1, 1), gui.EASING_INOUTQUAD, 0.5)
-- Animate the outline red color component
gui.animate(node, "outline.x", 1, gui.EASING_INOUTQUAD, 0.5)
-- And move to x position 100
gui.animate(node, hash("position.x"), 100, gui.EASING_INOUTQUAD, 0.5)

Completion callbacks

The property animation functions go.animate() and gui.animate() support an optional Lua callback function as the last argument. This function will be called when the animation has played to the end. The function is never called for looping animations, nor when an animation is manually canceled via go.cancel_animations() or gui.cancel_animation(). The callback can be used to trigger events on animation completion or to chain multiple animations together.

Easing

Easing defines how the animated value changes over time. The images below describe the functions applied over time to create the easing.

The following are valid easing values for go.animate():

go.EASING_LINEAR  
go.EASING_INBACK go.EASING_OUTBACK
go.EASING_INOUTBACK go.EASING_OUTINBACK
go.EASING_INBOUNCE go.EASING_OUTBOUNCE
go.EASING_INOUTBOUNCE go.EASING_OUTINBOUNCE
go.EASING_INELASTIC go.EASING_OUTELASTIC
go.EASING_INOUTELASTIC go.EASING_OUTINELASTIC
go.EASING_INSINE go.EASING_OUTSINE
go.EASING_INOUTSINE go.EASING_OUTINSINE
go.EASING_INEXPO go.EASING_OUTEXPO
go.EASING_INOUTEXPO go.EASING_OUTINEXPO
go.EASING_INCIRC go.EASING_OUTCIRC
go.EASING_INOUTCIRC go.EASING_OUTINCIRC
go.EASING_INQUAD go.EASING_OUTQUAD
go.EASING_INOUTQUAD go.EASING_OUTINQUAD
go.EASING_INCUBIC go.EASING_OUTCUBIC
go.EASING_INOUTCUBIC go.EASING_OUTINCUBIC
go.EASING_INQUART go.EASING_OUTQUART
go.EASING_INOUTQUART go.EASING_OUTINQUART
go.EASING_INQUINT go.EASING_OUTQUINT
go.EASING_INOUTQUINT go.EASING_OUTINQUINT

The following are valid easing values for gui.animate():

gui.EASING_LINEAR  
gui.EASING_INBACK gui.EASING_OUTBACK
gui.EASING_INOUTBACK gui.EASING_OUTINBACK
gui.EASING_INBOUNCE gui.EASING_OUTBOUNCE
gui.EASING_INOUTBOUNCE gui.EASING_OUTINBOUNCE
gui.EASING_INELASTIC gui.EASING_OUTELASTIC
gui.EASING_INOUTELASTIC gui.EASING_OUTINELASTIC
gui.EASING_INSINE gui.EASING_OUTSINE
gui.EASING_INOUTSINE gui.EASING_OUTINSINE
gui.EASING_INEXPO gui.EASING_OUTEXPO
gui.EASING_INOUTEXPO gui.EASING_OUTINEXPO
gui.EASING_INCIRC gui.EASING_OUTCIRC
gui.EASING_INOUTCIRC gui.EASING_OUTINCIRC
gui.EASING_INQUAD gui.EASING_OUTQUAD
gui.EASING_INOUTQUAD gui.EASING_OUTINQUAD
gui.EASING_INCUBIC gui.EASING_OUTCUBIC
gui.EASING_INOUTCUBIC gui.EASING_OUTINCUBIC
gui.EASING_INQUART gui.EASING_OUTQUART
gui.EASING_INOUTQUART gui.EASING_OUTINQUART
gui.EASING_INQUINT gui.EASING_OUTQUINT
gui.EASING_INOUTQUINT gui.EASING_OUTINQUINT

Linear interpolation In back Out back In-out back Out-in back In bounce Out bounce In-out bounce Out-in bounce In elastic Out elastic In-out elastic Out-in elastic In sine Out sine In-out sine Out-in sine In exponential Out exponential In-out exponential Out-in exponential In circlic Out circlic In-out circlic Out-in circlic In quadratic Out quadratic In-out quadratic Out-in quadratic In cubic Out cubic In-out cubic Out-in cubic In quartic Out quartic In-out quartic Out-in quartic In quintic Out quintic In-out quintic Out-in quintic

Custom easing

You can create custom easing curves by defining a vector with a set of values and then provide the vector instead of one of the predefined easing constants above. The vector values express a curve from the start value (0) to the target value (1). The runtime samples values from the vector and linearly interpolates when calculating values in between the points expressed in the vector.

For example, the vector:

local values = { 0, 0.4, 0.2, 0.2, 0.5, 1 }
local my_easing = vmath.vector(values)

yields the following curve:

Custom curve

The following example causes the y position of a game object to jump between the current position and 200 according to a square curve:

local values = { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
                 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
                 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
                 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 }
local square_easing = vmath.vector(values)
go.animate("go", "position.y", go.PLAYBACK_LOOP_PINGPONG, 200, square_easing, 2.0)

Square curve