JavaFX - Animations

In general, animating an object implies creating illusion of its motion by rapid display. Animations are used in an application to add certain special visual effects on elements like images, text, drawings, etc. You can specify the entry and exit effects on a text, fading an image in and out, displaying bulleted points (if any) one after the other, etc. The concept of animation is introduced to visually enhance an application.

As JavaFX is also a software that is used to create such UI applications, it supports the concept of Animations.

Animations in JavaFX

In JavaFX, a node can be animated by changing its property over time. JavaFX provides a package named javafx.animation. This package contains classes that are used to animate the nodes. Animation is the base class of all these classes.

Using JavaFX, you can apply animations (transitions) such as −

All these transitions are represented by individual classes in the package javafx.animation. In addition to these, JavaFX provides classes to apply more transitions on nodes.

The following are the other kinds of transitions supported by JavaFX.

Transitions that effects the attributes of the nodes: Fade, Fill, Stroke Transitions
Transition that involve more than one basic transitions: Sequential, Parallel, Pause Transitions
Transition that translate the object along the specified path: Path Transition

Applying Animation to JavaFX Node

To apply a particular animation to a node, you have to follow the steps given below −

Create a require node using respective class; for example, we use Rotate class to apply Rotate Transition.
Instantiate the respective transition (animation) class that is to be applied.
Set the properties of the transition.
Finally play the transition using the play() method of the Animation class.