Hour 15. Animation

Animation has long been considered a crowning achievement in Web graphics. Bringing static imagery to life with motion, an intelligent application of animation can evoke a feeling, a message, or a meaning. Not wanting to limit SVG, the W3C incorporated a series of animation abilities into their creation based on SMIL's functionality.

To introduce you to SVG's animation capabilities, you will learn the following in this hour:

• How motion unfolds

• Animating basic attribute value transitions

• Animating along a motion path

• Animating a transformation

• Animating color transitions

Having familiarized yourself with transformations and the set element (which is actually an animation element) in the previous two hours, you are already aware of much of the syntax behind animation elements. With both of these hours fresh in your mind, you'll be able to whip through this hour and begin bringing your content to life.