• See the power of Silverlight in action
• Learn the building blocks of animation in Silverlight 2
• Includes over 180 example Silverlight projects

Silverlight is a phenomenally powerful animation tool, but few people know how to unlock its potential. Foundation Silverlight 2 Animation gives you the keys to all of that power.

It covers the basics of animation—that is, Silverlight's storyboards and animations, which are used to provide interactivity to Silverlight applications. You'll take an in-depth look at double, point, and color animations. You'll also learn the difference between linear, spline, and discrete keyframes, and how they affect your objects as they move.

But it doesn't stop there. You'll go well beyond those simple timeline-based animations and learn how to create purely code-based animations. You'll use vectors to make objects move and bounce off boundaries and each other. You'll explore particle systems, kinematics, and collisions. You'll also learn how to use trigonometry to animate objects and simulate 3D motion in a 2D environment. The essential trigonometry required to create complex motion is simplified and explained through a series of fascinating and fun examples that can be incorporated into your own applications, games, and experiments.

Whether you're already familiar with Silverlight and you want to learn how to open it up, a Flash developer interested in expanding your skill set, or a web developer looking to take the next step into rich interactive application development, this book will bring you up to speed on Silverlight 2 and show you what it can do. From techniques for creating frame-based animations to learning how to simulate 3D in a 2D environment, there is something here to satisfy anyone's appetite for animation and interactivity.

In this book, you'll learn how to:

• Break free from the timeline and animate objects using code
• Add interactivity between objects through collision detection and reaction
• Implement forward and inverse kinematic chains to create lifelike motion
• Build particle systems and apply gravity to particles to create fountains and explosions
• Implement a virtual reality object viewer for simulating 3D objects

Summary of Contents

• Part One: Getting Started
  • Chapter 1 - What You Need to Know
• Part Two: Silverlight Animation: the Basics
  • Chapter 2 - Basic Transforms
  • Chapter 3 - Storyboards and Animations
  • Chapter 4 - Animation Techniques
• Part Three: Advanced Animation
  • Chapter 5 - Coordinates in Silverlight
  • Chapter 6 - Using Trigonometry for Animation
  • Chapter 7 - Simulating 3D in 2D
  • Chapter 8 - Collisions
  • Chapter 9 - Kinematics
  • Chapter 10 - Particle Systems
  • Chapter 11 - Silverlight VR (SLVR) Objects

Silverlight is Microsoft's breakthrough technology for creating rich experiences on the web. This book illustrates the power of Silverlight as a graphics, animation, and game-creation tool. It teaches the fundamentals of computer animation, using trigonometry and vector movement before moving on to more advanced topics such as physics modeling and particle systems.

With full code examples for all types of animation and interaction, this is an invaluable resource for both Silverlight beginners and more advanced users.

• Fully updated for Silverlight 3
• See the power of Silverlight in action
• Learn the building blocks of animation in Silverlight 2

What you'll learn

• Learn how to create procedural (code-based) animation in Silverlight
• Utilize trigonometry and vectors to create motion
• Create animated text and image effects such as blurs and drop shadows
• Add physics effects, such as gravity
• Experiment with kinematics to create walk cycles
• Play with particle systems to create simple explosions

Who is this book for?

Anybody interested in Silverlight can pick up this book and be productive. Similarly, those with some web development experience looking to add Silverlight applications to their site can be productive. More advanced users can extract the concepts presented and apply them in their own applications as well.