building animated ui with core animation

Marco ZoffoliiOS Developer

Building animated UI with Core Animation

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

2

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

3

/50

•Core Animation is an animation framework for animating UI elements and creating visual effects

•Available on both iOS and Mac OS X (we’ll cover only iOS)

• Just provide a few parameters and Core Animation will do the rest:• Starting point

• Ending point

• Timing

What is Core Animation?

4

/50

Architecture

GPU

OpenGL ES Core Graphics

Core Animation

UIKit

5

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

6

/50

CALayer

•A layer represents a rectangular portion of the screen with visual contents

•Every UIView has a CALayer, accessible via view.layer

• drawRect: actually draws into the backing layer

•Model similar to UIView:•addSublayer:•setNeedsDisplay•layoutSublayers•drawInContext:• ...

7

/50

CALayer geometry

layer.position = CGPointMake(150, 200)

layer.bounds = CGRectMake(0, 0, 170, 220)

layer.transform = CATransform3DMakeRotation(M_PI / 4, 0, 0, 1)

x

y

superlayer

layer

+

8

/50

CALayer geometry

layer.anchorPoint = CGPointMake(0.5, 1)

layer.transform = CATransform3DMakeRotation(M_PI / 4, 0, 0, 1)

superlayer

layer

layer

+

9

superlayer

/50

layer.cornerRadius = 5.0;

layer.borderWidth = 2.0;

layer.borderColor = [UIColor redColor].CGColor;

layer.shadowOpacity = 0.7;

layer.shadowRadius = 5.0;

layer.shadowOffset = CGSizeMake(1, 1);

layer.shadowColor = [UIColor blackColor].CGColor;

layer.mask = maskLayer;

CALayer appearance

10

/50

CALayer class hierarchy

CAEmitterLayer

CAGradientLayer

CAReplicatorLayer

CAScrollLayer

CAShapeLayer

CATextLayer

CATiledLayer

CATransformLayer

CALayer

11

CAEmitterLayer

CAReplicatorLayer

CAShapeLayer

CATransformLayer

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

12

/50

What is an animation?

time

value

13

/50

What can be animated?

•Geometry• position

• size

• transform (in 3D space)

•Appearance• borders

• shadow

• background color

• opacity

•And more...

14

Implicit animation

/50

Implicit animation

•Created automatically whenever an animatable property of a CALayer is changed

•Animates between the current and the new values, using the default duration and timing function

• Implemented as a transaction committed at the next run-loop iteration

• CATransaction allows to override the default animation properties, e.g.:•[CATransaction setAnimationDuration: 5.0]

16

/50

Implicit animation example

layer.position = CGPointMake(...);

[CATransaction setAnimationDuration: 3];[CATransaction setAnimationTimingFunction: [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName: kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut]];layer.position = CGPointMake(...);

17

/50

Disabling implicit animation

• If needed, implicit animation can be disabled:•[CATransaction setDisableActions: YES]• Affects only the current transaction

•To disable implicit animation only on a particular property of a given layer:•layer.actions = @{@"position" : [NSNull null]}• Affects every following transaction

18

Explicit animation

/50

Explicit animation

•Animation that are explicitly created

•Require more code than implicit animation, but provide more control over the animation itself

•Allow for more complex effects:• Keyframe animation

• Animation grouping

20

/50

Explicit animation example

CABasicAnimation *animation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath: @”position.x”];animation.fromValue = @(startPosition.x);animation.toValue = @(endPosition.x);animation.duration = 3;animation.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName: kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut];[layer addAnimation: animation forKey: @”animation”];

21

/50

Model vs Presentation

•Explicit animations do not affect the model values of the layer hierarchy

•Therefore, layer properties do not reflect what is shown on screen

•Use presentationLayer to get screen values:• Returns a copy of the layer that represents an approximation of its

current state

• Asking for sublayers returns objects in the presentation tree (not the model tree)

•Useful for modifying in-flight animations (i.e. for the from value of the new animation)

22

/50

Making it stick

layer.position = endPosition;

CABasicAnimation *animation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath: @”position.x”];animation.fromValue = @(startPosition.x);animation.toValue = @(endPosition.x);animation.duration = 3;animation.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName: kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut];[layer addAnimation: animation forKey: @”animation”];

•Explicitly set the model value to its final value

23

/50

Animation delegate

•Explicit animation can have an animation delegate• Retained by the animation (beware of retain cycles!)

•Gets notified when an animation starts or ends:•animationDidStart:•animationDidStop:finished:

24

/50

Explicit animation classes

CABasicAnimation CAKeyframeAnimation

CAMediaTiming CAAnimation

CAAnimationGroup CAPropertyAnimation CATransition

durationbeginTimetimeOffsetrepeatCount

25

Keyframe animation

/50

Keyframe animation

time

27

/50

CAKeyframeAnimation

•Keyframe values can be specified either with:• values - Array of keyframe values

• path - CGPathRef (only for layer properties that contain a CGPoint data type)

•Timing can be controlled with:• keyTimes - Array of floats defining when to apply the corresponding

keyframe value (or path control point)

• timingFunctions - Array of CAMediaTimingFunctions, controlling the pacing of each keyframe segment (linear, ease in, out, in/out)

• calculationMode - Controls how interpolated values should be computed (linear, cubic, or discrete)

28

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

29

/50

CATransaction

• It is the Core Animation mechanism for batching multiple layer-tree operations into atomic updates to the render tree

•Every modification to a layer tree must be part of a transaction

• Implicit:• Transactions that are created automatically when the layer tree is

modified by a thread without an active transaction

• Committed automatically when the thread's run-loop next iterates

•Explicit:• Explicitly created (with [CATransaction begin]) and committed (with [CATransaction commit])

30

/50

Explicit transactions

•Don’t forget to commit an explicit transaction (or bad things may happen!)

•Multiple transactions can be nested

•Can have a completion block, called when all subsequently added animations have completed

[CATransaction begin];[CATransaction setCompletionBlock: ^{

...}];

CABasicAnimation *animation = ...[layer addAnimation: animation forKey: @”animation”];

[CATransaction commit];

31

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

32

/50

3D transforms

• Layers can be transformed in 3D space

•The transform property is a 3D transform matrix (CATransform3D)

•Possible transformations:• Translate (CATransform3DMakeTranslation)

• Scale (CATransform3DMakeScale)

• Rotation (CATransform3DMakeRotation)

•Perspective can be achieved by manually altering the transform’s m34 entry:•transform.m34 = 1.0 / -zDistance;

33

/50

Is it really 3D?

• CALayer uses a flattened hierarchy rendering model• i.e. it flattens its sublayers into the plane at Z=0

•So, even if we can apply a 3D transform to each of our layers, we can’t group them into a single 3D object and apply a 3D transform to that

• It’s a 2.5D model

34

/50

CATransformLayer

• CATransformLayer can be used to create true 3D layer hierarchies• i.e. it does not flatten its sublayers

•Because of this, many of the features of the standard CALayer model are not supported:• Only the sublayers of a CATransformLayer are rendered

• The opacity property is applied to each sublayer individually

• The hitTest: method should never be called on a transform layer (it does not have a 2D coordinate space into which the point can be mapped)

35

Demo

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

37

/50

Replicators

• CAReplicatorLayer are special layers that create a specified number of copies of its sublayer tree

•Each copy is automatically updated every time you add or change a sublayer of the replicator layer

•Each copy can have geometric, temporal and color transformations applied to it

38

/50

How to use replicators

CAReplicatorLayer *replicatorLayer = [CAReplicatorLayer layer];replicatorLayer.instanceCount = 6;replicatorLayer.instanceTransform = CATransform3DMakeTranslation(50, 0, 0);replicatorLayer.instanceBlueOffset = -0.2;[view.layer addSublayer: replicatorLayer];

circleLayer = [CALayer layer];...[replicatorLayer addSublayer: circleLayer];

39

/50

Particle emitters

• CAEmitterLayer class implements a particle emitter system

•An emitter has:• A position (also in the z-axis)

• A shape (point, line, rectangle, circle, sphere, ...)

• A mode (outline, surface, volume, ...)

• An array of emitter cells (each must be an instance of CAEmitterCell)

40

/50

Emitter cells

•An emitter cell represents one source of particles emitted by a CAEmitterLayer

• It defines the direction and the properties of the emitted particles:•birthRate•velocity•contents•color•emissionLatitude/emissionLongitude•lifetime• ...

41

/50

Emitter cells

•For many properties (velocity, emissionLatitude, emissionLongitude, color, lifetime, ...) a range can be defined• Each emitted particle will have its own value for the property, randomly

chosen within its range

•An emitter cell can also have an array of sub-cells• Particles emitting particles!

42

Demo

/50

Agenda

•What is Core Animation?

• Layers

•Animating layer properties

•Transactions

• 3D transforms

•Advanced layer effects

•Performance tips & tricks

44

/50

General tips

•Set opaque property to YES for opaque layers

•Avoid CAShapeLayer with complex paths

•Avoid offscreen rendering• e.g. masks, shadows, ...

•Set shadowPath when using shadows

•Use Instruments’ CoreAnimation template to debug performance issues

45

/50

Layer caching

• Layers can be asked to cache theirs contents in a bitmap•layer.shouldRasterize = YES

• It will be reused when possible

•May lead to a significant performance improvement

46

/50

Layer caching

•Bitmaps require memory to be stored• Devices are memory-limited, so cache space is limited

• Improves performance only when the cached bitmap can be reused• Caching and not-reusing is more expensive than not caching

•A rasterized layer is not really suited to be scaled• The cached bitmap has a fixed size, depending on the layer’s size and

the rasterizationScale property

•Rasterization occurs before mask is applied

47

/50

Conclusions

Core Animation allows you to perform:

•Basic animations

•Keyframe-based animations

•More advanced effects:• 3D transforms

• Replicators

• Particle emitters

48

Q&A

Thank you!For further information: marco.zoffoli@pragmamark.org