Generating a basic animation of a 2D figure

I need to create an animation that translates a plot of a square in a diagonal motion while also shrinking and lightening the color of the square. I've never used animations before and I was told to use a for loop to create the animation. However all I have completed in generating all of the squares and they are all displayed on the same figure at the same time.

figure(1)
Square = [0,0,2,2;0,2,2,0];
fill(Square(1,:),Square(2,:), [1 0 .7])
title('Square Animation')
axis equal
hold on
fill((Square(1,:)*.9)+2,(Square(2,:)*.9)+2.1,[1 .2 .7])  
fill((Square(1,:)*.8)+3.9,(Square(2,:)*.8)+4.1,[1 .3 .7])
fill((Square(1,:)*.7)+5.5,(Square(2,:)*.7)+5.8,[1 .4 .7])
fill((Square(1,:)*.6)+6.9,(Square(2,:)*.6)+7.4,[1 .5 .7])
fill((Square(1,:)*.5)+8.1,(Square(2,:)*.5)+8.7,[1 .6 .7])
fill((Square(1,:)*.4)+9.1,(Square(2,:)*.4)+10,[1 .7 .7])  
fill((Square(1,:)*.3)+10,(Square(2,:)*.3)+10.9,[1 .8 .7])
fill((Square(1,:)*.2)+10.6,(Square(2,:)*.2)+11.7,[1 .9 .9])
fill((Square(1,:)*.15)+11,(Square(2,:)*.15)+12.4,[1 .93 .9])
fill((Square(1,:)*.1)+11.4,(Square(2,:)*.1)+13,[1 .97 .9])

Answer 1

[Amit]

something like this:

figure(1)
Square = [0,0,2,2;0,2,2,0];
fill(Square(1,:),Square(2,:), [1 0 .7])
title('Square Animation')
axis equal
hold on
A = [0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.15 0.1];
B = [2.1 4.1 5.8 7.4 8.7 10 10.9 11.7 12.4 13];
D = [2 3.9 5.5 6.9 8.1 9.1 10 10.6 11 11.4];
C = [1 .2 .7;1 .3 .7;1 .4 .7;1 .5 .7; 1 .6 .7;1 .7 .7;1 .8 .7;1 .9 .9;1 .93 .9;1 .97 .9];
for i = 1:numel(A)
    fill((Square(1,:)*A(i))+D(i),(Square(2,:)*A(i))+B(i),C(i,:));
    pause(0.5);
end

[Amit]

for loop plots them in sequence and pause allows 0.5 seconds pause before plotting the next one.

Answer 2

[Bruno Pop-Stefanov]

Using hold on will keep all previously drawn objects in your figure. Use hold off instead if you want only one square that animates.

Also, plotting a new object at each iteration using fill (or any other plotting function) is not the most efficient method. A faster method consists in plotting your object only once and then updating it using the set function.

Take a look at animation.m that I have attached to see how I would do it.

I use getframe to record a movie and then use the function movie to play the animation 20 times.