Kite Compositor: Design – Prototype – Animate

Creating Highly Interactive Prototypes and Animations Using Kite Compositor

What you’ll learn:
Students will learn to add animations to their prototyping skills for designing iOS applications
Learn about Apple Core Animation Framework without writing code
User Interface Animations
Interaction Designs

Requirements
Kite Compositor is a Mac-only application – Students will need to purchase and install Kite on Mac computer – You can install the companion iOS app for Kite too (optional), this lets you view the animations you create in Kite on a real iOS device, you will need to download and install the native Kite companion app (Kite Compositor) from the iOS App Store.

Description
“It’s kind of like Sketch meets After Effects”
– A designer

Visually drag and drop layers to build complex interfaces on a WYSIWYG canvas. Add animations and tune them with the integrated timeline.

“It’s kind of like PaintCode but for Core Animation”
– A developer

Use the built-in JavaScript scripting environment to enhance the detail of each interaction. Incorporate custom logic and behavior to achieve exactly what you need.

Features

Kite is full of amazing tools and features to help you bring user interfaces to life quickly.

Path Editing

With the pen tool, you can edit animation paths and shape layers right on the canvas.

Presentation View

Present your design in full screen in presentation playback mode. Or, choose your own presentation window size while iterating.

Customize the background color and transparency of the playback window for a custom look.

Generate Native Core Animation Code

Generate zero-dependency Swift or Objective-C code for your animation

Code compatible for both iOS and Mac

No more guessing how fast something should move, how large it should grow, or how to ease between keyframes

Adaptive Interface

A simple, powerful interface that scales and adapts to your needs and the task at hand.

Touchbar Support

Scrub through your animation, change tools, play and pause the timeline – all without reaching for the mouse.

Fits Right In – Light or Dark

You can take advantage of the light or dark appearance to seamlessly fit in with the rest of your tools.

Design with Multiple Pages

Factor your design into multiple pages of content – each with its own independent timeline.

Page-to-Page Transitions

Easily transition between the pages of your document in response to events.
Use the built-in page transitions or take full control and animate to the next page with your custom timeline animation.

Timeline

The integrated smart timeline allows you to drag and edit animation durations and keyframes.

Snap animation start and end times together for a precise, hand-tuned feel.

Inspector

A robust and powerful object inspector allows you to edit all of your layers’ properties in just a few clicks.

Set colors, adjust animation curves, add Core Image filters – all at the click of a mouse.

Library

Drag and drop layers and animations from the library to build your interface visually.

Save reusable layer hierarchies into your library for easy component reuse.
e.g. “My Button”

Design on Mac → View on iOS

Are you ready to get a sense of how your designs feel on an actual iOS device? Download the native companion app, Kite Compositor for iOS.

Import from Sketch

Easily import your designs from Sketch with Kite’s native import feature. Preserve editable bezier paths and text by importing your Sketch layers as native Kite layers.

Integrate with Adobe XD CC

Perfect your design in Adobe XD and then import it into Kite to polish the final animation details! Preserve animatable layer properties like bezier paths, colors, text attributes, shadows, and much more.

Export

Share your designs by exporting a movie or gif recording of your animation.

Scriptable

Add sophisticated logic to your animations and interactions via the built-in JavaScript scripting engine. Query and make live edits to your running animation from the built-in JavaScript console. Fire animations, add new layers, change properties and much more.

Built on Core Animation

Kite was built from the ground up for Mac using macOS’s native Core Animation technology.

CoreAnimation is one of the key underpinning graphics technologies on Mac and iOS that produces stunning animations at high framerates.

Real-time Rendering

Unlike other video or animation applications, Kite renders graphics in real-time thanks to the Core Animation compositing engine.

That means there is no need to bake frames or script every interaction beforehand. Animations can fire impromptu – interactively.

Designed for Interoperability

A Kite document is just a simple folder wrapper. Since the data is stored as flat files, you can simply open them to change assets, canvas values, or document data.

Does your app or service need a UI builder? Kite’s canvas data is an easily parseable JSON hierarchy of layers and their associated assets.

Embed Kite Documents in Your Own App

App developers can download the KiteKit framework to embed and play .kite documents right from within your own iOS or macOS apps. For examples and documentation, see the KiteKit GitHub repo.

Templates

Start working on an idea quickly with built-in templates and example documents.

Animation Curve Editor

Tune your animation’s timing with the curve editor to achieve the exact pace and feel for your design.

Help Built-in

Get help right where you need it by looking up layer and animation properties right in the inspector.

Who this course is for
This course is designed for those who like to prototype designs and animate them
Anyone with a desire to learn prototyping and animations
Busy developers who want to learn animation with Core Animation

Kite Compositor: Design - Prototype - Animate - Interaction (Updated 04/2021)