Swift Academy · Lesson

Implicit and Explicit Animations

Animate layer properties with CABasicAnimation.

Two Ways to Animate Layers

Core Animation offers implicit animations (automatic on property change) and explicit animations (you create an animation object).

Knowing both, and how they interact, is key to smooth motion.

Changing an animatable property of a standalone layer triggers an implicit animation using a default 0.25s curve—no animation object required.

let layer = CALayer()
// Later, this animates automatically:
layer.opacity = 0.0