Figma Smart Animate has transformed static wireframing into interactive prototypes. However, engineering teams routinely encounter severe friction when trying to translate Smart Animate transitions into production mobile or web applications.
The core limitation of Smart Animate is that it relies strictly on time-based cubic-bezier easing curves. A designer specifies that an artboard should transition over 350 milliseconds with an ease-in-out curve. If a user on a touchscreen drags that element and releases it with rapid flick velocity, a cubic-bezier curve cannot inherit that velocity. It must either stop dead and restart its 350ms curve, or jerk unnaturally into the destination frame.
Spring physics do not use time durations. Instead, springs are governed by Hooke’s law and damping forces: Mass (m), Stiffness (k), and Damping (c). When an interaction occurs, the element’s current velocity and position are passed directly into the mathematical simulation.
If a user taps, interrupts, or flicks an element mid-flight, a spring simulation dynamically incorporates the new impulse without jumping or glitching. ExodeUI bridges this exact gap with its Figma Converter tool, automatically converting Figma easing parameters and Smart Animate connections into synchronized cross-platform spring tokens.