How to create keyframe animations using CAKeyframeAnimation

Swift version: 5.6

Paul Hudson @twostraws May 28th 2019

Keyframe animations offer extraordinary power for developers because they let you set multiple values and have iOS animate between them over times you specify. There are three components: a key path (the property to animate), an array of values (the value you want to use for that property), and an array of key times (when that value should be used for the property).

The number of key times needs to match the number of values, because each value is applied in order when its key time is reached. In the example code below, a view will be moved down 300 points then back to its starting point over 2 seconds. It's important that you understand the key times and duration are separate: the key times should be between 0 and 1, where 0 means "the start of the animation" and 1 means "the end of the animation."

let animation = CAKeyframeAnimation()
animation.keyPath = "position.y"
animation.values = [0, 300, 0]
animation.keyTimes = [0, 0.5, 1]
animation.duration = 2
animation.isAdditive = true

vw.layer.add(animation, forKey: "move")

Because the animation is marked as additive, it means that 300 is relative to its starting position.

We can use key frame animations to create a simple shake effect that moves a view left and right across a brief animation. This will use additive animations again because we want to specify relative values (move to the left and right a bit) rather than absolute values:

func shakeView(vw: UIView) {
    let animation = CAKeyframeAnimation()
    animation.keyPath = "position.x"
    animation.values = [0, 10, -10, 10, -5, 5, -5, 0 ]
    animation.keyTimes = [0, 0.125, 0.25, 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, 0.75, 0.875, 1]
    animation.duration = 0.4
    animation.isAdditive = true

    vw.layer.add(animation, forKey: "shake")
}