Draw line animated

Question

I want to have a line in the center of the screen and animate it like a snake

This is step by step animation I want to make

How can I do this?

Answer 1

You can animate the end of the stroke of a path on a CAShapeLayer, e.g.,

weak var shapeLayer: CAShapeLayer?

@IBAction func didTapButton(_ sender: Any) {
    // remove old shape layer if any

    self.shapeLayer?.removeFromSuperlayer()

    // create whatever path you want

    let path = UIBezierPath()
    path.move(to: CGPoint(x: 10, y: 50))
    path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 200, y: 50))
    path.addLine(to: CGPoint(x: 200, y: 240))

    // create shape layer for that path

    let shapeLayer = CAShapeLayer()
    shapeLayer.fillColor = #colorLiteral(red: 0, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 0).cgColor
    shapeLayer.strokeColor = #colorLiteral(red: 1, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 1).cgColor
    shapeLayer.lineWidth = 4
    shapeLayer.path = path.cgPath

    // animate it

    view.layer.addSublayer(shapeLayer)
    let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "strokeEnd")
    animation.fromValue = 0
    animation.duration = 2
    shapeLayer.add(animation, forKey: "MyAnimation")

    // save shape layer

    self.shapeLayer = shapeLayer
}

That yields:

Clearly, you can change the UIBezierPath to whatever suits your interests. For example, you could have spaces in the path. Or you don't even need to have rectilinear paths:

let path = UIBezierPath()
path.move(to: CGPoint(x: 10, y: 130))
path.addCurve(to: CGPoint(x: 210, y: 200), controlPoint1: CGPoint(x: 50, y: -100), controlPoint2: CGPoint(x: 100, y: 350))

You can also combine animation of both the start and end of the stroke in a CAAnimationGroup:

// create shape layer for that path (this defines what the path looks like when the animation is done)

let shapeLayer = CAShapeLayer()
shapeLayer.fillColor = #colorLiteral(red: 0, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 0).cgColor
shapeLayer.strokeColor = #colorLiteral(red: 1, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 1).cgColor
shapeLayer.lineWidth = 5
shapeLayer.path = path.cgPath
shapeLayer.strokeStart = 0.8

let startAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "strokeStart")
startAnimation.fromValue = 0
startAnimation.toValue = 0.8

let endAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "strokeEnd")
endAnimation.fromValue = 0.2
endAnimation.toValue = 1.0

let animation = CAAnimationGroup()
animation.animations = [startAnimation, endAnimation]
animation.duration = 2
shapeLayer.add(animation, forKey: "MyAnimation")

Yielding:

CoreAnimation gives you a lot of control over how the stroked path is rendered.