how to include external animation (with animate) in Beamer

Question

I made an animation with the animate package and I want to integrate it into a Beamer presentation, and I only get a blank page. Can you tell me how to integrate an external animation into a Beamer presentation.

Here are two files to test, compile first the animation.tex ====Animation.tex===

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{animate}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{lindenmayersystems}
\pgfdeclarelindenmayersystem{A}{%
  \symbol{F}{\pgflsystemstep=0.6\pgflsystemstep\pgflsystemdrawforward}
  \rule{A->F[+A][-A]}
}

\begin{document}
\begin{animateinline}[controls,autoplay,loop]{2}
\multiframe{8}{n=1+1}{
  \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=10,rotate=90]
    \draw (-.1,-.2) rectangle (.4,0.2);
    \draw [blue,opacity=0.5,line width=0.1cm,line cap=round]
      l-system [l-system={A,axiom=A,order=\n,angle=45,step=0.25cm}];
  \end{tikzpicture}    
}
\end{animateinline}
\end{document}

=======

Beamer file

=======

\documentclass{beamer}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
first frame
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
animation
\includegraphics{animation.pdf}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
last frame
\end{frame}
\end{document}

========

Why not simply include the code for the animation in your beamer document? — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Feb 13 '17 at 16:17
The actual animation has 800 images and the compilation is too long — rpapa, Feb 13 '17 at 16:22
Ah, makes sense that you don't want to compile this every time. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Feb 13 '17 at 16:24
Maybe convert the animation to .swf and include the .swf? See http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/117563/36296 for the conversion. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Feb 13 '17 at 16:26
I want to stay in pdf format, without file included which requires to have on the different posts the correct drivers and identical installations — rpapa, Feb 13 '17 at 16:31
related question: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/267634/standalone-mode-image-with-animated-pdf — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Feb 13 '17 at 16:38
no @samcarter, this does not resolve the question asked, it just allows to limit the compilation time. We can generalize the question, how to introduce an external animation into a latex file. — rpapa, Feb 13 '17 at 16:43
In the documentation this is listed as bug: "PDFs with animations cannot be embedded (via \includegraphics, \includepdf) into other documents as the animation capability gets lost." — dexteritas, Feb 15 '17 at 00:07

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 23 '17 at 09:12

Animations produced with animate are based on PDF annotations, very much like hyperlinks. Such interactive elements get lost if they are embedded from external PDF documents with the usual methods (\includepdf, \includegraphics).

Therefore, a different procedure is needed:

Build a multi-page PDF with the animation frames (animation.tex):

\documentclass[class=beamer,tikz]{standalone}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{lindenmayersystems}
\pgfdeclarelindenmayersystem{A}{%
  \symbol{F}{\pgflsystemstep=0.6\pgflsystemstep\pgflsystemdrawforward}
  \rule{A->F[+A][-A]}
}

\usepackage{multido}

\begin{document}
\multido{\n=1+1}{8}{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=10,rotate=90]
    \draw (-.1,-.2) rectangle (.4,0.2);
    \draw [blue,opacity=0.5,line width=0.1cm,line cap=round]
      l-system [l-system={A,axiom=A,order=\n,angle=45,step=0.25cm}];
  \end{tikzpicture}%    
}
\end{document}

Build animation inside the target document, using \animategraphics:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{animate}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{first frame}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{animation}
  \animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop]{2}{animation}{}{}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{last frame}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Thank you egreg, but it does not completely solve the problem, \ animategraphics recompiles again, the different images and it does not reduce the compilation time of the final document (tries with a lot of images) — rpapa, Feb 24 '17 at 09:25
This procedure avoids re-processing TikZ code rather than rebuilding the animation. But to my experience, processing TikZ code is the more time consuming of both actions. Rebuilding the animation, while compiling the final document, cannot be avoided. — AlexG, Feb 24 '17 at 10:11
@rpapa I am currently optimizing the animate code to accelerate \animategraphics (animating external graphics). It seems that doubling the speed will be possible once I am done with it. — AlexG, Feb 24 '17 at 10:18

how to include external animation (with animate) in Beamer

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