Core Concepts

Core Concepts

Welcome to the Core Concepts section of the TimelineFX wiki. Here, we'll dive deep into the fundamental components that make up the animation engine. Understanding these concepts is key to unlocking the full potential of the library.

This section is broken down into several pages, each focusing on a specific part of the engine. We recommend reading them in order to build a solid understanding.

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Table of Contents

1. The Animation Engine

   • Learn about the central AnimationEngine that drives everything and why you should only have one instance.

2. Timelines, Keyframes, and Channels

   • Discover how to define animations over time. This page covers Timeline, TimelineProperty, Keyframe, interpolation curves (Easing, Bezier), and extrapolation behaviors (preBehavior, postBehavior).

3. Effects and Animated Properties

   • Understand how to create visual effects by extending AnimatedEffect and make their properties animatable with the @AnimatedProperty annotation.

4. EffectClips, Layers, and Bindings

   • See how EffectClip brings timelines and effects together. Learn to use Layers for composite effects and Bindings to connect timeline values to effect properties.

5. Transforms and Anchors

   • Master the art of positioning, rotating, and scaling your effects. Learn how to anchor your animations to static coordinates or dynamic entities.

6. Orchestration: Sequences and Parallels

   • Learn how to compose complex shows by running animations sequentially (Sequence) or concurrently (Parallel), and how to add delays or callbacks.