Designing Complex SVG Animations

Sarah Drasner

Senior UX Engineer at Trulia

@sarah_edo : twitter || @sdras : codepen

SVG Summit, January 2016

Sarah Drasner

Senior UX Engineer at Trulia

Why?

Animation is powerful to convey meaning
Can guide your users
Because otherwise we're not using the web to it's full potential
FUN!

Animation As Information

Animation must be designed
Helps with context-shifting
Invisible animation- check out Val Head's awesome "All the Right Moves"
Comply with branding
Animation for a company means having a motion design language, like Google Material Design
Consistent on mobile, or a fallback to a light version
Don't overdo it

UI/UX Animation

vs.

Standalone

UI/UX Animation

Pieces of the UI move to aid in an informative UX choreography. This can typically be done with well placed CSS, some JS to trigger interactions. Responsive can be achieved with good CSS media queries.

This pen made with Sara Soueidan's circulus.

UI/UX Animation: Context-Shifting

From this CSS-Tricks Article

Another good navigation example at Concrete Matter

This pen.

UI/UX Animation: Context-Shifting

Standalone

Used to illustrate concepts in the body of the page, either alongside or on it's own. Most of the basis of this talk is complex standalone animation. JavaScript is recommended for much longer implementations (explained later).

This pen.

If animation just feels like the sugar on top, that's because you treated it that way.

Motion on the Web:

Not one size fits all

Adhering to your branding means motion solves the problem for your users.

Questions to Ask:

Responsive?
Toggle on/off?
Easing structures
User flow
What happens EVERY TIME

Easing

Motion Design Language for Projects

Consider your tooling- loss leader- it was a lot of work at first that paid off along the way
Reuse resources like easing functions, animation keyframes in mixins, extends, variables, you name it!
If mobile is decoupled- easier to keep it consistent across both
Good animation branding guidelines means less communication down the line and reinventing the wheel.

Seems like a lot of work?

Main Principle:

Design everything first, slowly unveil things.

This pen.

Ugly storyboards save you time!

SVG!

Crisp on any display
Less HTTP requests to handle
Easily scalable for responsive
Small filesize if you design for performance
Easy to animate
Easy to make accessible
Fun! (there's a pattern here)

SVG!

This pen.

Before we get started:

Optimize!

Before we get started:

Animation Performance!

People expect mobile to be faster than web
JankFree.org
Advanced Performance Audits with DevTools by Paul Irish
CSS-Tricks Article: Weighing SVG Animation Techniques with Benchmarks
Above all else: test things yourself!

SVG Sprites

Start with this technique from Joe Harrison

Make it a Responsive SVG Animation Sprite

This pen.

Compare to using text with photos to illustrate an article.

8KB Gzipped.

That Whole Animation and SVG was

CSS Animation

[class^="star"] {
  animation: blink 2s ease-in-out infinite both;
}

[class^="dot"] {
  animation: blink 5s -3s ease-in-out infinite both;
}

@keyframes blink {
  50% { opacity: 0; }
}

No width and height for the SVG itself, instead define it in CSS

.initial { 
  width: 50%;
  float: left;
  margin: 0 7% 0 0;
}

We're using percentage here, but we could also use flexbox.

viewBox="0 0 490 474" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet"

Define smaller viewbox, put in preserveAspectRatio (though this is also the default)

Animation MEDIA QUERIES

+ Adjust initial object, affects animation

[class^="mountain"], [class^="grass"] {
  ...
  transform: skew(1.5deg);
}

@media screen and ( min-width: 500px ) {
  [class^="mountain"], [class^="grass"] { 
    transform: skew(2deg);
  }
}

!Important part

Animation MEDIA QUERIES

!Important part

You can do this. You know it already :)

ViewBox Shift with JavaScript

var shape = document.getElementById("svg");

// media query event handler
if (matchMedia) {
        var mq = window.matchMedia("(min-width: 500px)");
        mq.addListener(WidthChange);
        WidthChange(mq);
}
// media query change
function WidthChange(mq) {
        if (mq.matches) {
            shape.setAttribute("viewBox", "0 0 490 474");
        }
        else {
            shape.setAttribute("viewBox", "0 490 500 500");
        }
};

Acts like a window to show and hide the requisite parts of the sprite

Fallbacks

Options:

Fallback w/ modernizr
Fallback to a png equivalent
Fallback with the picture element (+ polyfill)
Sara Soueidan's article
Recommended: look at your analytics

Drawing for Animation:

Sprites

3 of 21 frames.

Shooting on twos.

This pen.

Large Sprite and animate the background position.

Keep it simple.

@keyframes splashit {
        100% { background-position: 0 -3046px; }
}

.splash {
  background: url(‘splash-sprite2.svg’);
  animation: splashit 1.8s steps(21) infinite;
}

/* fallback */
.no-svg .splash {
  background: url(‘splash-sprite2.png’);
}

2 ways to make this.

Illustrator, with a template:

Object → Path → Split Into Grid
View → Guides → Make Guides
Draw and then copy paste and align, change drawing slightly
Can also easily export png fallback

Works with Sketch, too.

2 ways to make this.

In an SVG editor with Grunticon

Draw drawing in SVG editor, save off one by one
Can also draw on paper and scan
Use grunticon
It makes the fallback for you

Take the steps() out

The background rolls through...

Let's use this to our advantage.

/*--extend--*/
.area {
  width: 600px;
  height: 348px;
}

.fore, .mid, .bk, .container { @extend .area; }

Extend to keep it DRY

.fore {
  background: url(‘fore.svg’);
  animation: bk 7s -5s linear infinite;
}

.mid {
  background: url(‘mid.svg’);
  animation: bk 15s -5s linear infinite;
}

.bk {
  background: url(‘bkwalk2.svg’);
  animation: bk 20s -5s linear infinite;
}

@keyframes bk {
  100% { background-position: 200% 0; }
}

Z-index for parallax, consistent bk position,

different length of animation in seconds.

Standalone as Illustration

Standalone SVG as an Illustration of Text

The poor-man version.

Very easy to implement. SVG stays a consistent size.

But Sarah, You Said COMPLEX

we want to do really complex stuff

OK COOL!

But we're going to use some JavaScript. GSAP, to be exact.

here's why...

(I don't work for them and they don't pay me.)

Solves Cross-Browser Inconsistencies

Bad transform origin bug on rotation, soon to be solved in Firefox.

Timeline

stack tweens
set them a little before and after one another
change their placement in time
group them into scenes
add relative labels
animate the scenes!
make the whole thing faster, move the placement of the whole scene, nesting

All without recalculation!

The issue with longer CSS animations:

This pen.

Other Cool Things

for Complex Animation

Motion along a path (widest support)
Draggable
CSS Properties
Draw SVG- make an SVG look like it draws itself.
MorphSVG
Relative Color Tweening
CycleStagger

Relative Color Tweening

Motion Along a Path for Realism

Percentage-Based Transforms on SVG!

get excited.

This pen courtesy of GreenSock.

We can do stuff like this, All fully responsive in every direction

It doesn't neccessarily have to be fully fluid, either. Let's Implement some Responsive Design.

Designing Interaction in Responsive Animations

Like legos.

This pen.

//variable declaration for the global repeated animations
var gear = $("#gear1, #gear2, #gear3");
...

//animation that's repeated for all of the sections
function revolve() {
  var tl = new TimelineMax();

  tl.add("begin");
  tl.to(gear, 4, {
      transformOrigin: "50% 50%",
      rotation: 360,
      ease: Linear.easeNone
    }, "begin");
    ...

  return tl;
}

var repeat = new TimelineMax({repeat:-1});
repeat.add(revolve());

function paintPanda() {
  var tl = new TimelineMax();

  tl.to(lh, 1, {
    scaleY: 1.2,
    rotation: -5,
    transformOrigin: "50% 0",
    ease: Circ.easeOut
  }, "paintIt+=1");
  ...

  return tl;
}

//create a timeline but initially pause it so that we can control it via click
var triggerPaint = new TimelineMax({
  paused: true
});
triggerPaint.add(paintPanda());

//this button kicks off the panda painting timeline
$("#button").on("click", function(e) {
  e.preventDefault();
  triggerPaint.restart();
});

...

Atmosphere

Elemental Motion

Further away is less contrast, blurry
Does the air or environment effect movement
Reducing precision allows for understanding

Putting Techniques Together

MorphSVG from GSAP

Tween paths to paths
Tween shapes to paths
Make animation magic

Point from one id to another

TweenMax.to("#start", 1, {morphSVG:{shape:"#end"}, 
   ease:Linear.easeNone});

Use shapeIndex

TweenMax.to("#start", 1, {morphSVG:{shape:"#end", 
   shapeIndex:"1"}});

Default is shapeIndex: "auto"
Load the extra plugin, and a GUI will come up
Usually auto will be correct, but you can pick
Use findShapeIndex(#start, #end)

Edit this.

MorphSVGPlugin.convertToPath("ellipse");

function flame() {
  var tl = new TimelineMax();

  tl.add("begin");
  tl.fromTo(blurNode, 2.5, {
    attr: {
      stdDeviation: 9
    }
  }, {
    attr: {
      stdDeviation: 3
    }
  }, "begin");
  var num = 9;
  for (var i = 1; i <= num; i++) {
    tl.to(fStable, 1, {
      morphSVG: {
        shape: "#f" + i
      },
      opacity: ((Math.random() * 0.7) + 0.7),
      ease: Linear.easeNone
    }, "begin+=" + i);
  }

More than one way of working

By Blake Bowen

function solve(data) {

  var size = data.length;
  var last = size - 4;    

  var path = "M" + [data[0], data[1]];

  for (var i = 0; i < size - 2; i +=2) {

    var x0 = i ? data[i - 2] : data[0];
    var y0 = i ? data[i - 1] : data[1];

    var x1 = data[i + 0];
    var y1 = data[i + 1];

    var x2 = data[i + 2];
    var y2 = data[i + 3];

    var x3 = i !== last ? data[i + 4] : x2;
    var y3 = i !== last ? data[i + 5] : y2;

    var cp1x = (-x0 + 6 * x1 + x2) / 6;
    var cp1y = (-y0 + 6 * y1 + y2) / 6;

    var cp2x = (x1 + 6 * x2 - x3) / 6;
    var cp2y = (y1 + 6 * y2 - y3) / 6;
   
    path += "C" + [cp1x, cp1y, cp2x, cp2y, x2, y2];
  } 

  return path;
}

Catmull-Rom Spline

Article about history in computer science.

var poly = document.querySelector("polyline");
var path = document.querySelector("path");

var points = [
  100,350,  
  200,100,
  300,350,
  400,150,
  500,350,
  600,200,
  700,350
];

poly.setAttribute("points", points);
path.setAttribute("d", solve(points));

var points = [
  100,350,  
  200,150,
  300,350,
  400,120,
  500,350,
  600,180,
  700,350
];

var points = [
  100,350,  
  200,100,
  300,350,
  400,150,
  500,350,
  600,200,
  700,350
];

Design + Information + Animation

Revisiting old approaches

Responsive animated Infographic

Rethinking Information Presentation article

Three Sources with Detailed Analysis Showing Lead Improvements

Conversion

(one source example, The Whole Brain Group)

increased traffic to their website by over 400%
lead increase by almost 4500%
the number of new visitors to their site to almost 78%

Problems

Not responsive- tipping point: Tim Kadlec
Not updated to current context
^ Especially design

All posts older than 2 years.

What Happened?

This pen.

Change the viewbox in JavaScript like we did before:

Responsive:

Media queries for layout, and fallback with Modernizr:

/* media query example element, mobile first */
@media (max-width: 825px) {
  container {
    width: 100%;
  }
}
@media (min-width: 826px) {
  .container {
    width: 825px;
  }
}

/* fallback */
.inlinesvg .fallback {
  display: none;
}

.no-inlinesvg .fallback { 
  width: 500px;
  height: 500px;
  display: block;
}

Accessibility

Title and associative aria tags: (WIP)

<svg aria-labelledby="title" id="svg" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 765 587">
<title id="title" lang="en">Circle of icons that illustrate Global Warming Solutions</title>

You can also add a title for elements in the SVG DOM

This resource, with support charts.

Also, this article by Dudley Storey.

Last Fun Thing:

Interactivity!

This pen.

SVG is really good at SHAPES

//balloon
function balloonGrow(){
  var balloon = $("#balloon");
  var radius = balloon.getAttribute("r");
  var cySet = balloon.getAttribute("cy");
  balloon.setAttribute('r', parseInt(radius) + 10);
  balloon.setAttribute('cy', parseInt(cySet) - 10);
  //all of the poppingness
  if (parseInt(radius) > 125) {
    //play the sound for the popping
    ion.sound.play("balloon-pop3");
    var balloonTl = new TimelineMax();
    balloonTl.add("pop");
    balloonTl.to("#balloon", 0.05, {
      scale: 5,
      opacity: 0,
      transformOrigin: "50% 50%",
      ease: Circ.easeOut
    }, "pop");
    ... //wait and then put it back
    setTimeout(function(){
      balloon.setAttribute("r", "45");
      balloon.setAttribute("cy", "233.5");
    }, 200);
  }
}

Social Coding Sites Help You Learn

Fun. Remember fun?

(I don't work for them and they don't pay me)

Codepen
JS Fiddle
Dabblet

People You Should Know About

Val Head
Sara Soueidan
Rachel Nabors
Tiffany Rayside
Chris Gannon
CJ Gammon
LegoMushroom
Ana Tudor
David Walsh Blog
Gregor Adams
Diaco ML

Amelia Bellamy-Royds
Taylor Hunt
Dudley Storey
GreenSock
Blake Bowen
I Hate Tomatoes (Petr Tichy)
Lucas Bebber
Rachel Smith
Joni Trythall
Jake Albaugh
Louis Hoegbregts

More!

SVG Immersion Podcast and Web Animation Weekly

More Technical Information:

Frontend Masters Course

Advanced SVG Animation

O'Reilly Book

SVG Animation

Thank You!

Sarah Drasner

@sarah_edo on twitter

@sdras on codepen

These Slides:

slides.com/sdrasner/svg-summit