Simplify SVG Cartoon Croc Animation

by qubodup - uploaded on August 1, 2025, 12:50 am

A crocodile shape that transforms into a sludge at 60fps and then turns back (ping-pong animation).

I traced https://openclipart.org/detail/263568/crocodile (huh, why are there bitmap-only SVG files here?) in Inkscape (Path/Trace Bitmap); removed the bitmap; duplicated the shape and simplified it repeatedly (Path/Simplify = CTLR+L, in some shapes I got annoyed how it doesn't lower node count any more and deleted some nodes manually before simplifying); converted the result to an animation using https://qubodup.github.io/simple-svg-animator/ (replace-pingpong); minified the result via https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/ ("Remove hidden elements" has to be disabled).

I was inspired to try this after seeing https://openclipart.org/detail/352378/transforming-a-square-into-an-equilateral-triangle

Shame about the preview, I guess visibility="hidden" is unsupported? Perhaps it would work with opacity="0"...