Support Home Game Builder Animation Guide

Game Builder Animation Guide

  • Overview
  • Animations
  • Count
  • Delay
  • Die
  • Fade
  • Fade In
  • Fade Out
  • Flip
  • Look At
  • Move Offscreen
  • Move To Object
  • Move To Origin
  • Move To Position
  • Play Audio
  • Pulse
  • Rotate
  • Scale
  • Set Text
  • Set Texture
  • Shake
  • Spawn
  • Spawn Random
  • Spin
  • Sway
  • Trigger Advance
  • Trigger Animation
  • Trigger Audio
  • Trigger Enabled
  • Visible

Overview


This page lists each animation and how it works. Browse the list on the side to find the animation you're interested in using.

Count


Make a Text component count up or down to a new value. This is useful for showing points or scores being added together, rather than having them simply snap from one value to another

CONFIGURATION

Value

The value to count to (should be numeric)


Operation

Whether to set, add or subtract the specified value


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Delay


Delay for a specific amount of time before performing the next animation.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Categorisation Game

Flanker Game

Tutorials that use this animation:

Delayed Reward (Go / No Go)

CONFIGURATION

Duration (ms)

The amount of time to delay for, in ms

Die


In the Animator, you can use the animation Die to make an Object permanently disappear for the remainder of the Scene. Once you have chosen for an Object to Die you cannot make it reappear within the same Scene. If you are looking to make an Object disappear, and then appear again, check out the Visibility animation instead!

A good example of the Die animation could be a firework that you want to send up into the sky and explode. You would animate the firework Object to Move to Position and then Die. You could then use the Afterlife component to spawn the particles of the exploding rocket.

Samples that use this animation

Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Fade


The Fade animation allows precise control over the visibility of an Object. You are able to alter the visibility of an object by choosing a number between 1 (being 100% visible) and 0 (being completely invisible).

See the video example below to see an object fade from 1 to 0.5. Using the Fade animation also alters the transparency of the object. This way you can Fade Objects to reveal other objects behind them.

Samples that use this animation

Wisconsin Card Sorting Game

CONFIGURATION

From

The alpha value to fade from (between 0 and 1)


To

The alpha value to fade to (between 0 and 1)


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Fade In


This animation controls the way that Objects fade into the scene. Objects will start invisible, and you can control how long it takes Objects to gradually appear by fading into the Scene.

Samples that use this animation

Categorisation Game

Iowa Gambling Game

Primacy & Recency Game

Tutorials that use this animation:

Delayed Reward (Go / No Go)

CONFIGURATION

Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Fade Out


Fading Out an object is the opposite of Fade In. Here, you can choose how long it takes for Objects to disappear from the Scene. Once an Object has been faded out, you can make it reappear by using the Fade In animation. Or you can make the Object instantly reappear by using the Visibility animation.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Primacy & Recency Game

Wisconsin Card Sorting Game

CONFIGURATION

Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Flip


By flipping an object, you can change the way the Object appears to be facing. For an example of this, see the video below where the Sprite of a fish flips 180° on its Y axis, to change the direction that it is facing. You can also control how long it takes for the Object to complete the Flip.

Samples that use this animation

Flanker Game

CONFIGURATION

Start

The starting amount of flip (between 0 and 1)


End

The finishing amount of flip (between 0 and 1)


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Look At


Rotate the object to look at another object, or to follow the cursor

CONFIGURATION

Look At

Whether to look at the cursor, or a specific object


Target Object

The object to look at


Rotation Offset

A fixed offset to apply to the rotation. Use 0 if your artwork naturally 'looks' vertically upwards, 90, if it naturally looks horizontally off to the right, etc.


Restore Start Rotation

By default, the object will be left looking in the direction it was looking at. Set this to reset the rotation to what it was at the start of the animation.


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Move Offscreen


Using this animation, you can direct Objects to move off of one of the four edges of the screen. Objects can move offscreen to the right, left, top, or bottom of the screen. You can also choose how long it takes for Objects to compete this movement.

Samples that use this animation

Flanker Game

Primacy & Recency Game

Wisconsin Card Sorting Game

CONFIGURATION

Side

The side of the screen you want this object to move off to


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms


Easing

Whether to use easing (start and finish slowly, while speeding up in the middle)

Move To Object


This movement animation allows you to move Objects to the same position as another Object within the Scene. This is sometimes easier than having to work out the exact positioning of Objects in pixels.

A great example of this would be flipping a coin and having the coin land on an open hand. You can set the location of this Movement of the coin to land in the ‘hand’. See the video below of an example of how one object can move to the same position as another object within the Scene.

CONFIGURATION

Object

The object on the screen to move to


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms


Easing

Whether to use easing (start and finish slowly, while speeding up in the middle)

Move To Origin


Moving an animation to its Origin will return it to its original starting position of the scene. After a series of other animations and movements across the Scene, you can use this animation to return the Object back to the exact starting position.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Prisoner's Dilemma Game

CONFIGURATION

Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms


Easing

Whether to use easing (start and finish slowly, while speeding up in the middle)

Move To Position


Move to specific coordinates, relative to the Object's origin

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Categorisation Game

Flanker Game

Tutorials that use this component

Trigger - Enabled

CONFIGURATION

Position

The position to move to, relative to our origin


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms


Easing

Whether to use easing (start and finish slowly, while speeding up in the middle)

Play Audio


This animation can be used to play an audio sample. This is useful for short sound effects (such as beeps or growls) that are designed to play in sync with the rest of the animation.

For audio stimuli, or longer audio samples, we recommend that you add a standalone Object with an Audio component, and trigger it with the Trigger Audio animation.

CONFIGURATION

Audio

The audio stimuli to play.

Pulse


Using the Pulse animation creates the effect of the Object pulsating. This is achieved by scaling an image up by a chosen number, in relation to its original size, and then back down to its starting size again.

Samples that use this animation

Categorisation Game

Memory Intrusion Game

Prisoner's Dilemma Game

CONFIGURATION

Scale

The amount to scale our size by when pulsing, expressed as a multiplier. 1.5 would be 50% bigger, 2 would double our size, etc.


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Rotate


This animation can be used to Rotate an Object as if it were on an axis. In this way you can appear to change the orientation of an Object. For example, see the video below where a Sprite of a fish is rotated 180°

CONFIGURATION

Arc

The angle to rotate from and to, in degrees.


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Scale


Using the Scale animation, you can control the size of the Object, in relation to its original size. This can be used to make it look like the Object is growing or shrinking. For example, setting the size to 0.5 will make the Object appear half as big as it originally did, whereas setting it to 3 will make it appear 3 times larger than its original size.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Primacy & Recency Game

CONFIGURATION

From

The scale to start from, expressed as a multiplier. 1.5 would be 50% bigger, 2 would double our size, etc.


To

The scale to end at, expressed as a multiplier. 1.5 would be 50% bigger, 2 would double our size, etc.


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Set Text


You can only set the text on Objects that have a Text component. This animation allows you to set or change the text on the Object that this animation is playing on. This can be controlled by binding to the spreadsheet, or you can set the text that will be constant for this Object.

One example of setting the text on an Object would be a prompt that waits until the participant has responded before displaying an encouraging message. The Text would be initially blank, and when the response is recieved, you could use this animation to change it to 'Well Done'

CONFIGURATION

Text

The text to set on the Text component of this object

Set Texture


You can only set a texture to Objects that have a Sprite component. This animation allows you to set or change a Texture to the Sprite on which the current animation is playing. This can be controlled by binding to the spreadsheet, or you can set a Texture that will be constant for this Sprite.

One example of Setting a Texture could be an arrow that has the Texture controlled by the spreadsheet, so when a response is correct, the arrow Sprite changes to a tick and when incorrect, it sets it to a cross.

Samples that use this animation

Flanker Game

CONFIGURATION

Texture

The texture to set our sprite to

Shake


The Shake animation allows you to shake objects side-to-side and / or up-and-down by controlling how far along the X and Y axes you wish the Object to move, and for how long the Object should shake for.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Flanker Game

Iowa Gambling Game

Memory Intrusion Game

CONFIGURATION

X

The magnitude (in pixels) and duration (in ms) of a single shake in the x-axis


Y

The magnitude (in pixels) and duration (in ms) of a single shake in the y-axis


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Spawn


The Spawn animation can be used to create other Objects dynamically. You can use this animation to trigger Spawnable Scenes you have created. For example, a puff of smoke or a burst of stars! If you'd like the effect to change randomly each time from a list of available options, you can make use of the Spawn Random animation instead.

Samples that use this animation

Categorisation Game

Iowa Gambling Game

CONFIGURATION

Spawn

The spawnable to spawn


Attach To

Whether to add the spawned object as a child of this object, or add it to the screen

Spawn Random


Similar to the Spawn animation, but allows you to specify a set of possible objects to spawn. This component will choose one randomly to spawn.

This is useful e.g. for effects such as spawning a different coloured firework each time one explodes

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

CONFIGURATION

Scenes

The list of spawnables to pick from


Attach To

Whether to add the spawned object as a child of this object, or add it to the screen

Spin


This animation can make Objects spin either clockwise or anti-clockwise. You can control how many times an Object spins and the speed that it spins, by setting the duration.

CONFIGURATION

Speed

The speed to rotate at, expressed as number of complete rotations per second. Use negative values to spin backwards.


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Sway


Within the Sway animation, you can set minimum and maximum angles you would like the Object to sway between, and how long for. The Object sways between these angles on its central axis. For example, have a look at the video below where the Sway and Move Offscreen animations have been used together to show a falling leaf.

Samples that use this animation

Primacy & Recency Game

Wisconsin Card Sorting Game

CONFIGURATION

Min Angle

The minimum angle to sway to, in degrees


Max Angle

The maximum angle to sway to, in degrees


Duration (ms)

The duration of this animation, in ms

Trigger Advance


Trigger the screen to advance. This is useful in situations where an animation finishing means the participant has failed to respond, and so this should be treated as a time out.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

CONFIGURATION

Advance Type

Whether to fire a Continue or a Timed Out response

Trigger Animation


Triggering Animations is very useful if you would like multiple Objects to be showing animations at one time, or to daisy-chain animations together. From the Trigger Animation settings, you can choose any other Objects with an Animator component, and control which animation is triggered.

Samples that use this animation

Categorisation Game

Flanker Game

Iowa Gambling Game

Primacy & Recency Game

CONFIGURATION

Target

The object to trigger animation on


Clip

The animation clip to play

Trigger Audio


Here, you are able to trigger the onset of audio being played in the current Object, or trigger audio to be played from another Object that also has an Audio component within it. This is useful when you need to delay an audio file being played until other animations have already taken place, for example.

For short sounds effects that are designed to be played in sync with animations (such as beeps or growls) it can be easier to play these directly using the Play Audio animation.

CONFIGURATION

Target

The object to trigger audio on - the object will need an Audio component for this to have any effect

Trigger Enabled


This animation can set another object to be enabled or disabled. This is useful when using animations to control whether something can be interacted with.

Tutorials that use this component

Trigger - Enabled

CONFIGURATION

Target

The object to trigger animation on


Enabled

The animation clip to play

Visible


This animation can be used to control whether an Object is visible to participants or not. You can toggle between Objects being invisible, and then later being visible once again. This is different to using the Die animation, which is a permanent action. Instead, here, there is no limit to the number of times the visibility of an object can be turned off and on.

Samples that use this animation

Urn Task Game

Categorisation Game

Flanker Game

CONFIGURATION

Visible

Whether this object should be made visible or invisible