Where can I find some sample WPF animations?

Question

As I am a programmer,and not an artist or animator and I am failing at showing off the best features of WPF in my application. Although I have samples for simple animations for buttons like growing, or having the color fade into something brighter on click but what I am looking for is some showcase button animations and some showcase panel change animations to show off the best features of WPF. Normally I would go for the more subtle changes, but in a couple of cases I need something to really show off the advantages of using WPF over WinForms technology.

Can anyone point me at some button samples and/or panel changing (switching from one panel to the next in a navigation) that really shows of WPF and has that wow factor.

EDIT

Please don't point to http://codeproject.com or the microsoft samples, as I have already perused those at great detail. In fact here are the list of WPF sites in my rss reader (Suggestions for other blogs welcome):

Lester's WPF blog, Ask Dr. WPF, Expression Blend and Design, WPF Wonderland, nerdplusart, Karl On WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation SDK, Josh Smith on WPF, Rob Relyea - Xamlified, The Moth.

I want specific examples, thanks...

Answer 1

This is a blog with some really cool samples of using WPF rich UI features

And this is an official MSDN page with other demos

Also check out WPF blog with a lot of examples directly from the development team

Answer 2

How about Cool Control Template for WPF Button?

Answer 3

This isn't a panel or button, but its one of the single-best "Wow!" factors I've seen with WPF so far. (Actually, it Silverlight now that I look at the link again, but its close enough. It can all be converted to WPF just as easily. That's why I book-marked it in the first place).

Here is the link.

Answer 4

PhotoSuru is a cool application with many animations and various graphical effects (it uses pixel shaders too)

Answer 5

Honestly I think the best way to learn is to use an animation tool. If you have access to Expression Blend you can use it to learn a lot about how WPF animations are setup in Xaml. There are many nuances to animation, like keyframe easing, that are just hard to understand and get right by plucking away at IntelliSense in Visual Studio.

As I’ve mentioned before, many people have access to Expression Blend and don’t realize it. Many college students and some high school students get it free through DreamSpark. Corporations that have MSDN licenses get it. Startups can also get it through the BizSpark program.

At any rate, if you’re interested in learning animations through Expression Blend, these starter videos on Channel 9 are a decent place to start:

Animation Using Expression Blend: How to create an animation

Animation Using Expression Blend: How to start animations on events

Animation Using Expression Blend: How to make an animation follow a path

Finally, I’ll leave you with a little teaser that animations get even more fun in a yet-to-be announced release of Blend. Keep an eye on Mix in March for more information.

Answer 6

you can have a look at family.show http://www.codeplex.com/familyshow

Answer 7

http://www.nibblestutorials.net/ this site has really cool tutorials on silverlight and wpf XAML in general.. planets 3d seemed cool

Answer 8

Blu
Has some really nice animations.

Answer 9

You might know about it, but I have not seen the WindowsClient.net list of WPF samples mentioned here.

Family.show is a reference application from the WPF team (w/ Vertigo).

If you just need showcases, you should check out WindowsClient.net WPF Showcase and Tim Sneath's list of WPF apps.

thirteen23's Blu and Drama are also very good as a showcase, but no source available. Though, Drama does have stunning animations with list views.

Answer 10

Also check out animation of rippling water, with raindrops falling in the water:

http://stuff.seans.com/2008/08/24/raindrop-animation-in-wpf/

I'm biased, but I think it's a nice demo of the power of doing 3D animation in WPF.

Answer 11

Have a look at the list of wpf applications here too -

Cool WPF applications :

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chabrook/archive/2007/02/20/cool-wpf-applications.aspx