AnimationBeginner

Wobble / Jiggle

A decaying oscillation that makes an object feel soft, springy, or alive.

animation-principlejuicephysicality

Examples

Captured from this page's own interactive demo below.

Overview

Wobble (or jiggle) rocks an object back and forth around a rest position — usually a rotation or scale oscillation — with the amplitude decaying over time until it settles, like a plate spun on a table slowing down.

It works because almost nothing rigid actually behaves like it's welded in place; a slight, decaying wobble after being touched, dropped, or landed on reads as material softness and physical presence rather than a lifeless prop.

It's a lightweight way to make idle or secondary motion (a tree after being hit, a character's ears, a stack of coins after landing) feel like it has believable physical follow-through, without full physics simulation.

Interactive Demo

Amplitude14°

Decay0.6

Use Cases

UIHyper CasualIdleMatch-3

Best Practices

Do

✓Decay the amplitude every oscillation (multiply, don't subtract) so it settles smoothly rather than stopping abruptly.
✓Pick a pivot point that matches the object's implied mass distribution (base of a tree, top of a hanging sign).
✓Trigger it from real events (landing, being hit, being picked up) rather than looping it constantly — constant wobble reads as broken, not alive.

Don't

✕Don't apply the same wobble frequency/amplitude to objects of very different implied size — a coin and a boulder shouldn't jiggle identically.
✕Don't wobble something the player needs to read precisely (a UI value, an aiming reticle).
✕Don't let wobble affect collision/hitboxes — keep it purely visual.

Common Mistakes

⚠Using a fixed-duration tween instead of a genuinely decaying oscillation, so it looks like it 'stops' rather than 'settles'.
⚠Forgetting to reset rotation/scale to the exact rest value at the end, leaving a tiny permanent offset.
⚠Layering wobble on top of another rotation-driven animation (e.g. a spin) without composing them, causing one to override the other.

Implementation

Paste this into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to add the effect to your project.

Prompt

Add the "Wobble / Jiggle" game-feel effect to my project: A decaying oscillation that makes an object feel soft, springy, or alive.

How it works: Wobble (or jiggle) rocks an object back and forth around a rest position — usually a rotation or scale oscillation — with the amplitude decaying over time until it settles, like a plate spun on a table slowing down.

Guidelines:
- Decay the amplitude every oscillation (multiply, don't subtract) so it settles smoothly rather than stopping abruptly.
- Pick a pivot point that matches the object's implied mass distribution (base of a tree, top of a hanging sign).
- Trigger it from real events (landing, being hit, being picked up) rather than looping it constantly — constant wobble reads as broken, not alive.

Avoid:
- Don't apply the same wobble frequency/amplitude to objects of very different implied size — a coin and a boulder shouldn't jiggle identically.
- Don't wobble something the player needs to read precisely (a UI value, an aiming reticle).
- Don't let wobble affect collision/hitboxes — keep it purely visual.

Implement the effect in whatever engine/stack the project already uses and follow its existing code style. Wire it up where it makes sense.