Animate Mate Sketch Plugin

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December 6, 2019

“Create your animations directly in Sketch using AnimateMate.”

Haha, is this joke or what?! Why the heck do I need animation tools in Sketch.

You know feeling when you just need a simple animation for your awesome concept and you realize that it’s a huge process to move all assets into some other application? That’s a lot of hassle! Like this example.

I Know the Feeling!

That’s why I created AnimateMate in order to produce and export simple animations straight out of Sketch. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it can lighten your workflow in some cases. So let the game begin!

Install

Copy AnimateMate.sketchplugin to Sketch plugins folder.

Easiest way to go into your Sketch plugin folder:
Plugins > Manage Plugins > Reveal Plugins Folder

How to Use

There are tons of ways to use AnimateMate and I’ll try to explain basics in this video.

You could run into a situation when you’re wondering why it’s working this or that way… This plugin does not convert your Sketch to a fully featured animation software 🙂 However, it’ll help you in many simple cases, but if you need more complex animations you should consider some other animation tools. AnimateMate was made for creating simple animations at least for now, we’ll see how it’ll develop in the future…

Shortcuts

Command	Shortcut	Description
Create Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `K`	Create new animation / keyframe to layer.
Offset Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `O`	Offset animated and/or keyframe values.
Random Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `G`	Generate random animation to selected layers.
Edit Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `L`	Edit layer animation values in ordered text view.
Delete Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `D`	Delete animation from selected layer(s).
Return Keyframe	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `R`	Return selected keyframe values to layer(s).
Export Animation	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `A`	Export your animation to PNG or GIF format.
Reverse Keyframes	`ctrl` + `option` + `cmd` + `B`	Reverse keyframes in single or multiple animations.

Examples

Here are a couple examples that are made using AnimateMate plugin in Sketch. You’ll find more info and examples in the AnimateMate.com web pages.

Known Bugs to Fix

Export scaling option doesn’t work after Sketch 41 version.

Roadmap & Feature Ideas

Colloboration & Feedback

If you fork AnimateMate and create some useful updates, please do send me pull requests so I can include your work to AnimateMate and give you credit here!

There is so much to do in order to make it better! Collaboration is very welcome and all feedback is greatly appreciated hello@creatide.com

I’m a Visual Designer and a hobbyist coder. So if you’re a more experienced with code, I know we can make it even better 🙂

About

I think Sketch is super useful in many design tasks. But while using Sketch and as well many other graphic design softwares I was always longing for the basic level of animation tools. Usually it’s only the basic move-, rotation-, scale- or transparency animations that needed to visualise something simple.

I think most of the graphical design sofwares should include at least some very basic level of animation tools. Like in Photoshop I’ve nowadays found many good uses for animation tools. Too often it would be hard work to transfer all assets to other software just for creating simple animations. Still, it doesn’t need to be such a complex system…

Author

AnimateMate made by Creatide (Sakari Niittymaa)

Creatide is not a company nor a big factory. It’s a single Designer who also loves coding and improving workflow. I create tools for my personal usage in order to relieve my design process, so every tool is used by myself. Some of those tools end up being released to the public under this name and domain.

Working as a designer makes your come up with different ideas on how your workflow could be improved. My approach: when you got an idea for a specific tool, create it, then you have it. That’s what Creatide is all about.