animations in WPF and special effects like blinds

Question

 

Hi,

In the past I created an effect horizontal blinds where parts of the screen where showing up line by line just like opening blinds in a house. That was easy because i used a bitmap..

 

I converted my code to the WPF enviroment where all things are elements and no bitmaps. It looks good and smooth. No blinking during updates or transparency problems as with window forms...

 

Now I come to the point where I want to add animations to a WPF window. Moving from left to right or something is very easily with the leftproperty bound to the animation.

 

But now comes the brainbracker...

How can i create an effect that will show an effect like a blind on the content of a canvas where the canvas itself contains elements like text, video etc...?

is there a way to apply a visible clip path on top of the canvas to show an effect.

 

I know its friday and my brain starts converting to the weekend virtual machine part, but i would like to crack this problem before it is so far....

 

Thanks for you ideas.

Answer 1

If you are talking about transition type effects, like horizontal blinds, fades and wipes, check out Kevin's bag o tricks - Mix edition http://wpf.netfx3.com/files/folders/controls/entry10297.aspx

 

The transition presenter in there has those and a million more.

Answer 2

This is how i got my vertical split function to work.

I connect it to the clip of a canvas that must become visible.

 

Code Block

Dim Page as Canvas

 

 

private Sub VerticalSplitEffect

Dim c As Double = 25

Dim x As Double = Page.Width

Dim y As Double = Page.Height

Dim Cnt As Double = Math.Ceiling(x / c)

Dim G As New GeometryGroup

Dim ID As String

Dim AnimClipRegion As Geometry = Nothing

For i As Double = 0 To Cnt - 1

 AnimClipRegion = New RectangleGeometry(New Rect(0, 0, 0, 0), 0, 0) 'create new one

 ID = CreateNewID()

 Page.RegisterName(ID, AnimClipRegion)

 G.Children.Add(AnimClipRegion)

 Dim AnimationRect As New Animation.RectAnimation(New Rect(i * c, 0, 0, y), New Rect(i * c, 0, c, y), New Duration(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(Duration)), Animation.FillBehavior.Stop)

 Windows.Media.Animation.Storyboard.SetTargetName(AnimationRect, ID)

 Windows.Media.Animation.Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(AnimationRect, New PropertyPath (RectangleGeometry.RectProperty))

 StoryBoardAnimator.Children.Add(AnimationRect)

Next

Page.Clip = G

End Sub

 

 

Private Function CreateNewID() As String

On Error Resume Next

Return Guid.NewGuid.ToString("N")

End Function