METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING ARBITRARY-SHAPED ANIMATION IN THE USER INTERFACE OF A COMPUTER

An animation method and system generates interactive animation in the foreground of the user interface of the computer. The system generates arbitrary shaped animation that is independent of the background image of the user interface by computing a bounding region for a current animation frame in real time and creating a non-rectangular window to match this bounding region. The system draws the animation to this non-rectangular window, which clips the frame to the bounding region of the graphical object. The system can be used to create interactive animation that is not confined to a rectangular window of a hosting application or a window of the application making the request to playback animation.