Samsung released Home Up v16 for One UI 7 in early February. This update brought a huge new feature — home screen animation tuning. The sheer amount of settings may seem overwhelming but do not worry. This guide will help you understand what each thing does, and what you should adjust.
How to tune home screen animations using Home Up?
Let’s start with the presets. There are four options, which you’ll find by navigating to Good Lock > Home Up > Gesture settings > Home gesture animation tuning.`
- Classic – the default One UI 7 animations
- Elegance – slower, softer animations
- Dynamic – much faster, less bouncy animations
- Sweet – very slow and soft animations
There’s also a simple tuner, that can let you pick between “emotive” and “fast” animations, depending on your preference.
Advanced animation adjustments
But what about the advanced options? There are a lot of toggles in here (go to Detailed settings after selecting the Advanced tuning option), so let me show you what each thing does. Let’s first check out the top section, Icon Movement. This will adjust how much the icon moves at the end of the animation. There are three sub-sections here:
- Damping – it controls the shaking you see as the icon slots into place. The higher the values, the less it shakes. If you like bouncy effects, I recommend keeping both sliders at 0.75. Set them at 0.92 for less bounce.
- Stiffness – it determines the amount the icon can move from its slot on the home screen. The higher the value, the closer it will be to its slot. I recommend setting both values to around 170 for a snappy yet fluid experience.
- Friction – it sets the speed at which the icon returns to its slot. The higher the value, the faster it will snap to its slot. The default value of 0.5 works well here.
Next is Icon Scale, which controls how much the icon shrinks when returning to the home screen. This has three variables:
- Damping – it controls how quickly the icon switches from app preview to icon. The higher the value, the slower the icon will shrink. I like the default value of 0.96.
- Stiffness – it determines how quickly the icon animates the switch. The higher the value, the faster the animation. Go for a value of 200 for a slower, fluid animation, or 300 for a snappier feel.
- Interpolator – In basic terms, an interpolator acts as a bridge between two points (or states). You control how that bridge is formed. A straight line represents a “Linear” interpolator, which animates between states evenly. Curved lines (which we animators call Beziérs) adjust the speed, allowing you to start slow and speed up towards the end, for example. Interpolator values are measured in X/Y coordinates, such as (0.2, 0.0; 0.5, 1.0) for both states. My recommended values here are (0.2, 0.0; 0.6, 1.0), but feel free to experiment.
Now, let’s focus on something much less complicated, Icon Tracking Position. There’s a single value, 0 to 1, which decides where the animations will be targeted. The default is 0.5, which targets the top edge of the icon. I like it to track the center of the icon, which is 1. Next up, another interpolator, this time for Window Transparency. This will change how quickly the app preview fades and how and reveals the icon. Set this value to (1.0, 0.0, 0.62, 1.0).
Customize your wallpaper animations for a personalized experience
With Home Up, you can also fine-tune wallpaper animations. Below are the three variables you can manually adjust.
- Scale – it determines how much the wallpaper zooms in during the amination. I like 1.2, but 1.4 is pretty cool too.
- Duration – it controls how long it takes for the wallpaper to zoom in and out. The default here is 1.2, but a higher value like 1.4 for some wallpapers.
- Interpolator – it provides more granular control over the wallpaper zoom animation pattern. I’ve set them to (0.36, 0.22; 0.0, 1.0) for a nice ease-in.
- Blur – a simple toggle that blurs the wallpaper during the animation, adding a depth effect of sorts. I’d turn this on.
And finally, we have the Home Screen grid itself. Here we have two options:
- Scale – it shrinks the grid when you open an app, and expands it again when you close it. I like this set to 0.76.
- Vertical move – this mimics the old Pixel home animation, where the grid jumps up and down vertically. The default value is 90, but I’d crank this up to 200 for a satisfying effect.
There’s also a duration slider, to adjust how long this animation lasts, and one last interpolator for good measure. I have this set to (0.3, 0.9; 0.5, 1.0).
There you have it, a complete guide on mastering Home Up’s animation engine. Feel free to use your newfound knowledge and experiment. Find something that works well for you. If you haven’t already downloaded Home Up, you can download it from the Galaxy Store. Note that these advanced features are only available on One UI 7.0.
