animateable

Animateable is an adjective used to describe something that can be animated. In animation, graphics, and interactive design, an animateable element or property is one that can change over time according to a timeline, keyframes, or easing curves. The term emphasizes the potential for motion rather than the act of animating itself.

The word is formed from animate, meaning to give life or motion, plus the suffix -able. Related spellings include animatable, which is common in technical writing, and animateable as an alternate form; both convey the same meaning.

In practice, animateable attributes appear in many domains. In computer graphics and game development, position, rotation, scale, color, opacity, and morph targets are routinely made animateable. In user interface design, properties such as dimensions, transforms, visibility, and other style quantities are often defined as animateable so that transitions and micro-interactions can be performed smoothly. In vector graphics formats like SVG and in CSS-based animation, only a subset of attributes are truly animatable, with some properties interpolating more naturally than others.

Limitations exist: not all variables or parameters can be animated smoothly, due to discrete steps, constraints, or performance considerations. When a property is not animateable, it may still change, but only by abrupt updates rather than continuous motion.

See also: animatable, animation, keyframe, interpolation.