Animation of computer-generated display components of user interfaces and content items

摘要

Animation of computer-generated display components of user interfaces and content items is provided. An animation application or engine creates images of individual display components (e.g., bitmap images) and places those images on animation layers. Animation behaviors may be specified for the layers to indicate how the layers and associated display component images animate or behave when their properties change (e.g., a movement of an object contained on a layer), as well as, to change properties on layers in order to trigger animations (e.g., an animation that causes an object to rotate). In order to achieve high animation frame rates, the animation application may utilize three processing threads, including a user interface thread, a compositor thread and a rendering thread. Display behavior may be optimized and controlled by utilizing a declarative markup language, such as the Extensible Markup Language, for defining display behavior functionality and properties.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method of animating a computer-generated display component, comprising:
generating one or more display layers for displaying one or more display components on a computer-enabled display surface; drawing a display component on each of the one or more display layers; applying an animation property to each of the one or more display layers; applying one or more animation behaviors to each of the one or more display layers for enabling animations for each of the one or more display layers when changes are made to animation properties applied to each of the one or more display layers; receiving a change to one or more animation properties applied to one or more of the display layers; flattening all display layers that did not receive a change to one or more animation properties into a single non-animating display layer; and animating the one or more display layers for which an animation property change is received according to the one or more animation behaviors applied to the one or more display layers.