Getting Started with React Native Skia
Article Summary
Daniel Friyia from Shopify breaks down React Native Skia, the library pushing mobile animations beyond what most developers thought possible. If you've been intimidated by those hypnotic animation demos, this is your entry point.
Shopify has sponsored development of @shopify/react-native-skia for two years, bringing Google's Skia graphics engine to React Native. This tutorial demystifies the library that powers jaw-dropping 2D animations, covering everything from basic drawing primitives to gesture handling and visual effects.
Key Takeaways
- Skia runs on UI thread enabling smooth 60-120 FPS animations without re-renders
- Works seamlessly with react-native-reanimated and gesture-handler out of the box
- Canvas uses cartesian coordinates instead of flexbox for pixel-perfect control
- Supports both SVG notation and imperative commands for custom path drawing
- Includes web support through React Native Web for cross-platform consistency
React Native Skia brings desktop-grade 2D graphics to mobile with performance optimizations that keep animations buttery smooth while integrating naturally with existing React Native tooling.
About This Article
React Native Skia intimidated many developers. The library is powerful, but people didn't know where to start or how to use it in real projects.
Daniel Friyia wrote a tutorial that breaks down the essentials. It covers canvas coordinate systems, basic shapes like Circle, Rect, and RoundedRect, drawing paths with SVG notation and imperative commands, adding animations with react-native-reanimated, and handling gestures with react-native-gesture-handler.
The tutorial shows developers how to move from static drawings to interactive animations with effects like blur and dash patterns. This makes it practical to build custom 2D graphics for production React Native apps.
