Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is Friction?

Friction is an open-source 2D animation and motion graphics software. It is designed for animators and graphic designers who need a powerful and flexible tool for vector and bitmap animation.

Is Friction open source?

Yes, Friction is licensed under the GPL version 3.

Can I use Friction for commercial projects?

Yes, there are no restrictions, you can use Friction for anything you want.

What operating systems does Friction support?

Friction is currently available for Linux, Windows and experimentally macOS.

Officially supported systems:

Can I contribute to Friction’s development?

Absolutely! Contributions are welcome in the form of code, documentation, bug reports, and feature suggestions. You can check our repositories at:

Does Friction support scripting?

Yes, Friction supports scripting through ECMAScript. You can create custom scripts to automate tasks and control animations dynamically.

How can I report a bug or request a feature?

You can report bugs or request new features on the GitHub Issues page. Please provide as much detail as possible, including steps to reproduce the issue.

Does Friction support GPU acceleration?

Yes, Friction uses Skia for rendering, which takes advantage of GPU acceleration when available.

Is Friction an After Effects copy/clone?

No, Friction has its own targets, focus users and features. You may find that some tools work similar to it but, please, consider Friction a whole different animation package.

Do the Expression Editor has a valueAtTime() function?

At the moment Friction has not option to retrieve information from another frame but the actual but I will may be introduced in the next v1.1.

Does Friction support Lottie animations?

No, while Lottie has its great advantages, Friction uses SVG animations with SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) supported by the W3 Consortium.

Currently we have no plans to support Lottie, we only support/promote web standards.

Is Friction a fork of enve?

Yes, Friction forked from enve in February 2023. Most users of enve should be able to move to Friction, note that some features have been removed or changed. enve was a starting point for Friction, the codebase will change/differ more and more with each release.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask in our Friction community or open an issue on our repos.

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