CSS Animation 101

Donovan Hutchinson

www. dbooks . or g
 Abstract Learn
how to add animation to your web projects
Contents
1 Welcome 5
Hello, I’m Donovan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Book structure . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Help and support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 6 Need to brush up on your CSS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Why animate? 8
More than words alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 What is animation
on the web? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 With great power comes great
responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Inspiration ................................. 11
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3 Creative environments 13
In the browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Local
development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 In
summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4 Transitions 16
Transitions ................................. 16
Transition properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 In summary . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5 Animations 20
Animation in the browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Transitions vs. Animations ........................ 22
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

6 Transitions in action 23

Transitions ................................. 23

Example: Button transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Prefixes and browser compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

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7 Transitions properties 26

Shorthand vs Longhand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Things transitions don’t work on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

8 Timing functions 30

Linear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Ease-in ................................... 32

Ease-out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Ease-in-out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Cubic-bezier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

More examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

9 Multiple transitions 37

Example 1: Fancy button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Example 2: Background reveal ...................... 39

Multiple transitions on a single element ................. 41

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

10 Transitions and JavaScript 42

Add or remove classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Controlling transitions with JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Let’s recap ................................. 44

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

11 Animations in action 46

A symbiotic relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

The animation property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

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 Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Prefixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

12 Animation properties51

Using timing functions within keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

13 Keyframes in action 55

Things to look out for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Example: Save button wiggle effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

14 Multiple animations 60
Traffic lights ................................ 60
Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

15 Animation recap 64
Homework challenge: Traffic lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Recap:
Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Putting them together . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

16 Storytelling 67
Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Example: Scrolling
background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Part 1: Background animation . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Part 2: Adding the hover transition ................... 71
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
17 Star Wars 74

Transform: Not an animation property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Transform: scale(), translateZ() and rotateY() ............. 75

SVG, HTML and CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Animating the Star and Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Making it 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

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 The Force Awakens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

18 Revealing content on scroll 80

Wow.js . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Using Wow.js . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Adding “wow” classes ........................... 81

Hiding and showing ............................ 82

Using Animate.css . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Using Modernizr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

19 Accessibility 84

Make sure content is accessible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Give control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Allow for alternate inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Confusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Don’t make me sick ............................ 85

Accessibility is for everyone’s benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Homework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

20 Now you know CSS animation! 87 CSS Animation cheatsheet . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Resources to bookmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Other tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Next
steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

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Chapter 1

Welcome
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin
Welcome to CSS Animation 101, and thank you for choosing this book.
I’m delighted you’ve chosen to learn CSS animation. This book is a light and fun
introduction to the topic, and I hope you find it helpful. We’re going to learn about
CSS transitions and animations. By the end you’ll have a good understanding of CSS
animations as well as the tools to create and experiment with our own.
There will be both theory and practical examples. We’ll learn how to easily create
your own working environment, and look at lots of examples of animation along the
way.

Hello, I’m Donovan

I’ve been writing articles about CSS and other topics for the best part of a decade.
I’ve also been designing and developing websites since the late 90’s. More recently,
I’ve written for Smashing Magazine, Net Magazine, Tuts+, Adobe Inspire and more.
I post random stuff at Hop.ie, and this year I’ve been writing tutorials on
CSSAnimation.rocks, all about advanced and useful animations in the browser.
During my days I work as a designer and front-end developer, and I’m a big fan of
combining UX principles with fun animations in design. In the evenings I write blogs
and try to make sure I’m aware of what’s happening in the world of web design.
This book is an introduction to the topic of CSS animation, but along the way we’ll
cover a lot of material. The goal is to make sure we understand what the transition and
animation properties are for, how they work, and see them in action.
By the end of this book you should be confident enough to begin applying animation
to your projects.

Book structure
Here’s what we’re going to cover.

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First: What’s animation anyway? We’ll look at why we animate. We’ll also
introduce the transition and animation properties and some sources of inspiration.

Then: All about the transition property. We’ll learn how transitions work, and the
properties we can control to change the movement.
After that: We’ll take on the animation property, and learn how to create keyframes
that go beyond simple transitions.
Lastly: Bringing it all together. We’ll put together some advanced examples that make
use of both, look into how we can make sure our work is accessible, and share some
helpful CSS resources we can apply to projects, and JavaScript tools we can use for
more advanced effects.

Help and support

I love to hear from you with your questions and thoughts. Feel free to drop me an
email at [email protected], or tweet me at
[@donovanh](https://twitter.com/donovanh) at any time.

Need to brush up on your CSS?

If you’re new to CSS, it might be worth taking time to get familiar with the concepts.
You don’t need to be an expert in CSS. If you know what a property is, you’ll be fine.
Some online tools and resources you might find helpful:
• Interactive HTML/CSS tutorials
• Learn to Code HTML&CSS

Homework
You’ll notice each chapter ends with a little homework section. This is entirely up to
you but if you like you can use this to help with your learning. Each homework
section will have a suggestion for something to try or think about. Give it a little time
and you’ll find your understanding of CSS animation will be even better.
Ready? Let’s learn all about CSS animation!

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Chapter 2

Why animate?
“Animation is about creating the illusion of life.” Brad Bird Before we get into
the technical side of CSS animation, let’s discuss why we’re animating in the first
place.

More than words alone

Animation can convey information efficiently, or it can be used to grab attention but
in the end it’s all about communication.
Movement in our designs gives us a more powerful way to communicate. It
transcends verbal and written language.
Subtle and appropriate animation can add appeal to our designs and credibility to our
work. This happens because as humans we’re used to seeing movement all the time in
the “real” world. Bringing some of that life into our work brings the two closer.
As our web browsers continue to improve and better support animation, it’s
becoming a more viable option than ever. In many ways animation is as important to
web design as the fonts we use and layouts we create.

What is animation on the web?

Animation brings us two main benefits: conveying information and grabbing
attention. We can come up with many ways these benefits can help us as we build for
the web.
Animation can be subtle, like when the CodePen save button wiggles a little to
remind us when we need to save our work:

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Figure 2.1: Animated “Save” button (http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/KwEQdQ)

We’re very good at spotting movement. It’s something we’ve evolved to do. Adding
a little animation here and there can introduce some of that “illusion of life” in a very
subtle way.
We can also use animation to introduce content to a page:
By animating information onto the page, we give our viewers an extra piece of
information that might otherwise be missing. The animation both draws attention to the
new content being added and gives context to that new information. Without animation
it would just suddenly appear, possibly leaving the viewer unsure of whether it was
there all along.
We can use animation to tell a story:
The above is based on an instructional video for the game “Portal”. However, telling
stories through our content doesn’t always need to be so literal. We can add subtle
movement, such as showing data changes in a chart. In this way, data can itself tell a
story with animation helping.

With great power comes

great responsibility
It’s easy to do too much with animation. Having too many things moving around on
the page at once is distracting. It’s usually a good idea to try to do less animation
when possible. Any movement you do add will be all the more powerful.

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Figure 2.2: Animating list items (https://cssanimation.rocks/list-items/)

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 Figure 2.3: Portal animation (http://hop.ie/portal/)

This might mean only moving a small item on your page. Sometimes it’s ok to do
less.
Having said that, if you want to create more of a “wow” effect with larger
animations, you can do so. Just make sure and stop when it’s time for your viewers to
focus on the content. This might mean setting animations to play once rather than
infinitely, or stopping animations when people begin to scroll a page.

Inspiration
Animation has a long and rich history. I recently wrote a post on Principles of
Animation for the Web. The principles draw from Disney’s 1981 book The Illusion
of Life: Disney Animation.
If you want to go further, dig into the Animator’s Survival Kit videos. YouTube is
full of sources of inspiration and ideas.
For loads of great examples, take some time to browse Hover States. This site
features all sorts of interesting examples of animation from the web. Dribbble.com is
helpful also.
For example, here’s a nice example from Dribbble showing Google’s Material
Design principles. Searching for “animation” is a great way to find inspiring ideas.
I also regularly check up on what’s happening at CodePen. It’s a great source of
canvas and web animation examples.

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Summary
• Animation is kind of a big deal
• Used right, it can be a useful and powerful tool in our designs
• Use it to grab attention or convey information
• Don’t overdo it
• If you want to stand out, animation can really help

Homework
Think about your own work and how animation might help.
It’s tempting to go crazy and animate all the things, but try to look for ways subtle
animation might better help your visitors understand the content. Is there a call-to-
action on your page people are missing? Is there a sudden change in your page that’s
happening too suddenly, and could benefit from a smoother transition?
Lastly, take a look at sites like Hover States and Little Big Details and Dribbble.
These sorts of sites help if you’re ever stuck for ideas.

Chapter 3

Creative environments
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by
falling over.” Richard Branson
Today we’re going to look at ways we can build and see our CSS animations in the
browser. Before we get started with the coding, it’s a good idea to have a workflow
that makes it easy to get started.
We’ll cover two ways of doing this: developing in the browser, and developing
offline (locally).

In the browser
The simplest way to get going for small experiments is to develop online. A site I
often use is CodePen. Another good one is JS Fiddle.
For the rest of this course I’ll be using CodePen for examples and it’s worth being
familiar with the way it works.

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CodePen is a coding playground that involves an edit mode where you can make
changes to HTML, CSS and JavaScript and see the results immediately. The screen is
divided up into four areas. The preview content, the HTML area, CSS and JavaScript.
Within each is a settings option that allows you to configure languages (Sass instead
of CSS for example) and other cool stuff.

Local development
For more involved projects, I prefer to develop offline. There are ways to do so that
can be efficient and quicker than working in the browser.
Basic option: Simple
HTML/CSS

The most simple option is to create a HTML file (filename.html) and an associated
CSS file (filename.css) and link the two in the HTML. This is ok, but can be slow with
lots of flicking back and forth between the browser and the editor.
I’ve created a set of HTML and CSS files you can copy and use to begin creating.
Download them here.

Figure 3.1: Starting files

Dreamweaver / Macaw / Muse /

Coda / Sublime
You can of course use whatever tool you find comfortable to create web pages. All
you really need is a text editor. Some other tools come with more fancy visual
editing, and if that’s your preference, go for it.
Personally I’d recommend trying to get to grips with the code. Understanding the
way the CSS works will help when it comes to fixing issues, or creating more
expressive effects that visual tools can provide.

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Gulp
If you’re familiar with Github, Node and checking out code, you might want to set up
a development enviroment on your own machine.
I am a big fan of Gulp. Being Node-based, it’s very fast. Modules can be put together
to process Sass into CSS, autoprefix for browser support and sync browsers so that
you don’t need to keep refreshing each time you update the code.
If you’ve used Grunt or other build tools, the process should be familiar.
I’ve created a Github repo to make local development faster. If you’re comfortable
with using Git, go ahead and follow the readme for setup instructions.
Do improve it if you wish and push the results back. Teamwork!

In summary
As you learn CSS animation, feel free to try different ways to create your code. You
might want to host it yourself, or you might prefer to use CodePen. Either is good.
Make sure you can get from idea to code as smoothly as you need to.

Homework
Register with CodePen. Have a go adding some HTML and CSS, and see how the
results change in response. It’s also a good idea to check out some of the featured
CodePens on the home page, and see how it’s done.
Optional: If you want to try local development, download local starting files:
• Basic option: Project starter HTML/CSS files
• Advanced: Gulp & Sass starter
Next: We’ll be talking about transitions!

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Chapter 4

Transitions
Let’s look at the transition property.
Browsers used to be much more simple. It wasn’t so long ago that they couldn’t render
images or handle more than a handful of fonts. Then CSS gave us power over how web
pages look and feel.
Animation in browsers isn’t new. Flash, Canvas and other JavaScript options have
given us ways to animate but more recently CSS has become a viable option.

Transitions
One way CSS lets us control animation in the browser with the transition property. In
browser terms, a transition is an animation from one state to another.

Figure 4.1: Transitions: A to B

When we use a transition on an element we tell the browser that we want it to

interpolate, or automatically calculate, the change between states.

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Figure 4.2: Animated transition from A to B
(http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/RNdxqw)

For example we can change an element’s style on hover, apply a transition, and the
browser will create a smooth animation between the element’s starting style and it’s
new style.

Figure 4.3: Animated button (http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/MYQdZd)

Transition properties
When we use a transition on an element, there are all sorts of properties that change
how the transition works. We can make it slow or fast, delay it, and even control the
rate of change using timing functions. We’ll delve into what these mean in the next
chapter.
Another example of combined transitions:
Soon we will discuss how to use transitions to make these sorts of movements.

In summary
A transition is the change from one state to another. For example, when hovering
over an element, its style might change. Transitions allow the change to become a
smooth animation.

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 Figure 4.4: More transitions (http://codepen.io/suez/pen/XJGOyL)

Homework
How’s your creative environment looking? How about taking a look into the code,
and looking for the transition property in the CSS. Can you see what it’s doing?
Next time you’re browsing the web, look for examples of transitions as you navigate
web pages. Look for interesting changes such as when a new element is added to a
page, or you hover over a button. You’ll find the web is full of subtle animation once
you start looking for it.

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Next: An overview of the animation property and how it differs from transition.

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Chapter 5

Animations
So far we’ve discussed why we animate, found some sources of inspiration, looked at
tools and sites we might find useful for development, and learned what transitions
are.
Next, allow me to introduce the animation property.

Animation in the browser

Transitions and animations are similar. Both take the form of a CSS property, and have
duration, delay and other ways of controlling how the browser creates the movement.
While transitions are all about smoothing the change from state A to state B,
animations are a way to describe multiple steps.

Figure 5.1: Animations: A to B to C

Animations are useful for more complex movement in the browser. In the above
example, there are 3 states (A, B and C). A transition would only go from A to C while
an animation allows us to specify what step B looks like and make sure the animation
follows all three steps.
Animations also behave a little differently. They can begin automatically. While a
transition might require adding a class or a change of state such as hovering,
animations can start when the page loads.
This means that if telling a story or drawing attention to something on a page,
animations can be a good choice.

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Examples
The “Save” button movement we see on Codepen is a good example of a practical
animation.

Figure 5.2: Save button on CodePen (http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/KwEQdQ)

It does a great job helping people notice the button.

The effect is made up of a series of keyframes that tell the browser to shake the
button from left to right. We’ll dig more into keyframes in greater depth in chapter 3.
We can do so much more with CSS positioning and keyframe animations. For
another example check out this CSS-only 3D Mac Plus!
This CSS Mac Plus is available on CodePen and here’s a step-by-step guide to
building it.

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Figure 5.3: Mac Plus created using CSS
(http://codepen.io/donovanh/full/HGqjp/)

Transitions vs.
Animations
Transitions are when the browser animates from one state to another (A to B). They’re
usually triggered by an action such hovering over an element, or adding or removing a
class using JavaScript.
Animations are more involved, and let you create sequences of animations with as
many keyframes as you need along the way. They trigger automatically, and can loop.
We’ll take some time to work on the animation property later.

Homework
Can you think of ways animations might be used on your web pages? Keep an eye
open for animation when browsing. Look out for when something moves in a way that
calls attention to itself. In these cases it’s usually an animation.
If you’ve downloaded the starter HTML and CSS, take a look for the animation
property. Unlike transitions, animations need a second part, called keyframes.
Try changing some values and see what happens.

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Chapter 6

Transitions in action
Now that we have introduced the transition and animation properties, it’s time to
delve further into transitions and see some code!

Transitions
Transitions take place in the browser when an element changes from one state to
another. The browser draws the frames between each state automatically to create
movement.
A transition is a property in CSS. Just as you’d give an element a height, width, or
border, we give elements transitions too. We can write a transition in CSS like this:
transition: background 0.5s linear;
In this case we’re telling the browser that a transition of the background property,
will take half a second, and use the “linear” timing function.
The above property might cause a button’s background to change when hovered over:
button {
background: white;
transition: background 0.5s linear;
}

button:hover {
background: green;
}
Notice the transition property to the first button reference in the CSS state. This tells
the browser to apply a transition to any change of state such as on hover as well as
when changing back from the hover state.
If we applied the transition property to the hover state only, it would only transition
to the hover state but not back.
Let’s see how this looks in action. I’ve set up a couple of demos. You might find these
examples contain some code that isn’t obvious. I’ll be going into greater detail over the
next few days, but do feel free to poke around at the values to see what happens.

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Example: Button
transition

Figure 6.1: Button hover effect (http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/MYQdZd)

Here’s a CodePen demonstrating the hover effect. In CodePen, you can make
changes to the HTML and CSS and see the results immediately. The important thing
to look for is the any property beginning transition-. I’ve written them out long-hand
for demonstration like so:
transition-property: all; transition-duration: 0.4s;
transition-timing-function: ease-out;
This code that tells the browser what sort of movement to generate between the non-
hover state and the hover state. It tells the browser to animate all properties (colours,
size, position), over a duration of 0.4 seconds. Try changing some of these values.
For example, change the “0.4s” to something longer, like “2s” (two seconds). How
does the animation feel? You could change the property from “all” to “background”.
For a fun effect, try changing the transition-timing-function value from ease-out to:
transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(.59,-0.26,.33,1.42) The cubic bezier timing
function is a lot of fun. We’ll cover timing functions in more detail on another day.

Prefixes and browser

compatibility
When I’ve given code examples, I’ve not included vendor prefixes. This is to make
the code easier to read, but if you’re using the code in production they are needed.
I like to use Autoprefixer (it’s an option on Codepen, press the settings “cog” icon in
the CSS section), and can be run with build tools such as Grunt or Gulp. Alternately
you can manually write them out like this:

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-webkit-transition: ...; -moz-
transition: ...; transition: ...;

Homework
Edit the button in today’s example and add your own ideas. You could try changing
the shape, border, or almost any property. Have some fun, the goal is to make sure
you’re familiar with how a transition affects the element’s hover effect.
For some inspiration check out this awesome hover style. There are loads of great
examples around if you are looking for ideas.
If you want to go further, try creating a new CodePen with an element that changes
from one thing to another on hover. See if you can have an element within it move at
a different rate. Don’t worry if you haven’t got to this point yet, we’ll cover the
properties in more detail.

Chapter 7

Transitions properties
Now that we have seen the transition property in action, let’s look at the properties
that go into transitions and what they mean.

Shorthand vs Longhand
When writing CSS, we can often summarise multiple properties into one in a
shorthand property. For example, padding written as shorthand might look like this:
padding: 10px 20px 15px 25px; This
would be the equivalent of:
padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 20px;
padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left:
25px;
In the same way, we can write a transition as shorthand too:
transition: all 0.5s 1s linear;
In this case, the shorthand corresponds to:

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transition: [property] [duration] [delay] [timing-function]; Each of these properties
can be written individually:
transition-property: all; transition-duration: 0.5s;
transition-delay: 1s; transition-timing-function: linear;
Let’s look at each of these properties. transition-
property
Usually stated first in the shorthand, this is the property that the browser will animate.
To change the background for example, background could be used. It’s also possible
to use all to have all applicable CSS properties transition. transition-duration

A transition-duration value tells the browser how long the transition will take. A
transition-duration of 3s (three seconds) will be three times longer than a transition-
duration of 1000ms. transition-delay

The transition-delay property tells the browser to wait before applying the transition.
This is a time value, and it can be specified in seconds or milliseconds. For example,
3s would be three seconds and 100ms would be one hundred milliseconds. Equally,
you could write that as 0.1s. It’s up to you. transition-timing-function

Both transitions and animations make use of timing functions. There’s a lot to these,
so rather then try to cram it in here, we’ll talk more about timing functions tomorrow.
Timing functions can really add life to your animations.

Things transitions don’t

work on
While you can use transitions on positioning, size, colour, border,
backgroundposition and many others, there are some that cannot be transitioned. The
font-family cannot be transitioned, as this would mean trying to generate frames
between two very different font images.
Background images created with CSS, such as generated gradients, cannot have their
properties animated. This would mean the browser recreating the background image
with each frame of animation, so it’s not supported.

However you can animate things like opacity and background position. By moving
background images around or hiding them you can create interesting effects.
See it in action on this Baymax example where a background image is moved to
create the animation.

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 Figure 7.1: Source: http://cssanimation.rocks/baymax/

A similar effect is used on this button sheen effect, where the background gradient is
animated across the front of a button.

Figure 7.2: Source: https://cssanimation.rocks/pseudo-elements/

Homework
I’ve created a basic Codepen to try out transitions.
At the moment it’s set up to transition from a diamond shape into a circle. Try
changing some of the attributes, to see what happens.
If you’d like to go further, press the “Fork” button to create your own version and
you can then save your work to your own Codepen account.

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Chapter 8

Timing functions
The timing function is a description of the rate at which the speed of the transition
changes. Animations look lifeless when they occur at a fixed, linear pace. Using
timing functions can make transitions more life-like.
For example, here is an example of a transition using a linear timing function. It
moves back and forth at an unchanging pace.
Contrast this to this example using cubic-bezier timing functions. You’ll see quite a
big difference!
For this example we’re using customised cubic-bezier timing function:
The cubic-bezier approach in this case tells the animation to rock back a little before
quickly moving to the second state, and actually goes a little past it before correcting
back.
The CSS for the beginning and hover state of each example is the same, all that’s
changed is the timing function.
Let’s go through each and learn how they impact the way our elements move. If
you’d like to play with these in an example, I’ve set up a CodePen here.

Linear
A linear transition moves at a steady rate from beginning to end. Since there’s no
curve in the transition, it never accelerates or decelerates. This can be useful if
making animations that need a steady movement, like the scenery moving past the
background of a train window or a steadily rotating moon.

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Figure 8.1: Cubic-bezier timing function

Figure 8.2: Linear

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Ease-in

Figure 8.3: Ease-in

The ease-in timing function begins slowly and accelerates toward the end of the
transition. It would be similar to a ball beginning to roll down a hill, finishing at the
fastest speed at the bottom. Or perhaps a bored fish swimming left and right.

Ease-out

Figure 8.4: Ease-out

Ease-out is the opposite of ease-in. It starts fast and slows down toward the end of the
transition. Useful for when something needs to appear as if it was rushing from off-
screen and slowing down to stop.

Ease-in-out
Ease-in-out is a combination of both the ease-in and ease-out functions. It begins
slowly, accelerates through the middle part of the transition, then slows toward the
end. It could illustrate a car starting from a standstill, accelerating, then slowing down
before stopping. If making a loading animation, something like this can look pretty
good.

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 Figure 8.5: Ease-in-out

Cubic-bezier

Figure 8.6: Cubic-bezier (custom)

All the timing functions we’ve seen so far are examples of cubic bezier curve. This is
a curve that describes the “shape” of the timing function. In this way, specifying a
cubic-bezier timing function is like creating a timing function of our own.
They consist of 4 values, representing two co-ordinates. A cubic-bezier can look like
this:
transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(1,-0.49,.13,1.09);
The two co-ordinates here are (1, -0.49) and (.13, 1.09). On a graph, they look like
this:
Rather than create these by hand, I use cubic-bezier.com. It’s a great way to create
some interesting effects.
They really get fun when using values greater than 1. It’s possible to create
transitions that overshoot, and bounce back.

Steps
Where most of the timing functions involve curves, the steps function divides the
transition into a set of steps and jumps between each. For example, if you specify

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 Figure 8.7: Source: http://cubic-bezier.com/#1,-0.49,.13,1.09

Figure 8.8: Steps

steps(4) the transition divides the duration into 4 discrete jumps (pictured above).

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This is useful for sprite animation. For example, a loading spinner or animated video
game character. By setting the background position at the beginning of a series of
frames, the steps timing function can then be used to jump through each frame and
create the appearance of movement.
To see a good example of this in action, check out the Twitter fave button animation.
You can also specify whether the transition holds the first frame for the fragment of
the duration or whether it holds the final frame. The default is end, as this assumes
that the first frame in the sprite is already showing before the animation begins.
We can specify which applies when setting the steps:
transition: all 2s steps(10, start); transition: all 2s steps(10,
end);
More examples
I’ve written on the subject of timing functions here if you’d like to read more and see
other examples.

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Homework
Following on from the previous homework example try changing the transition-
timing-function value and see how it changes the way the transition feels.
You can also try changing values on this demo. Technically it’s an animation rather
than a transition, but the timing function applies in the same way.

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Chapter 9

Multiple transitions
So far we’ve covered how a transition creates the movement between one state and
another. Next we’ll see what happens when we apply a single transition to an element
with multiple changes, and how to use multiple transitions together to subtly improve
our animation.

Example 1: Fancy button

While we’ve seen a simple button hover effect already, we can combine multiple
transitions into a single button for a more interesting effect.

Figure 9.1: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/YPMGpJ

In this example a hover effect combines several changes of state, but all are defined
by a single transition:
transition: transform 0.4s cubic-bezier(.72,-0.61,.25,1.51);
Here’s how it works. The button is made up of two icons and two pieces of text. The
initial (non-hover) state is that the “Follow me” text and Twitter icon are positioned
inside the button. I position the @ symbol and the “cssanimation” text outside the
button like so:

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Then I add a hover state, in which the elements outside the button are positioned
inside the button, like so:

I do this using CSS transforms. For example, the Twitter symbol is positioned using
absolute positioning. When setting it up I positioned it where I wanted using left and
top values:
.icon { position: absolute;
left: 0.75em; top:
0.75em;
}
Then I add a hover state for the button and position the Twitter icon outside the
button with a transform:
a:hover .icon {
transform: translateY(3em);
}
Adding overflow: hidden to the container means that elements outside the button
won’t show.

34
With no transition in place, the icon would suddenly disappear. Since each of these
elements inside the button is a span, I can apply the transition to them all at once:
span {
transition: transform 0.4s cubic-bezier(.72,-0.61,.25,1.51); }
This now means that any span elements will be transitioned if their state changes,
such as on hover. The same trick is applied to the other parts of the button. You can
see this example in full on CodePen.

Example 2: Background
reveal
In this example I’ve set up a card containing some text, and show the text on hover.
The initial (non-hover) state of the card has the title showing but the paragraph text
has an opacity of zero. On hover, we change that to 1 to show the text, and change the
height of the text container.
Without transitions, it looks like this. When we hover over the card the change is
sudden.
With the addition two transitions to change the mood entirely. Here’s the result. The
first transition (written short-hand this time) looks like this: transition: all 0.5s cubic-
bezier(.48,-0.28,.41,1.4);
This tells the browser to animate all properties over a duration of 0.5 seconds and
uses the cubic-bezier transition to give it some bounce. It affects the height of the text
container in this case.
The second transition makes the text move. Here a ease-out timing function is used:
transition: all 0.4s ease-out;

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 Figure 9.2: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/LEvjJg There’s a lot
that we can achieve by changing states on hover. In this example the info
div’s height and the paragraph are both give new values within
the .card:hover state.
In this example we use two transitions so that each of the moving parts moves in a
different way. Having elements move at different paces can really help add appeal to a
transition.
You can also see this example on CodePen.

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Multiple transitions on a
single element
As well as using multiple transitions on multiple elements, we can also use more than
one transition on a single element.
A case for this is when you need an element’s background to change separately from
it’s border. Applying a single transition to all properties might be too crude for both.
We can achieve this by combining multiple transitions into a single declaration.
Multiple transitions are separated by commas. For example:
transition: background 1s ease-out, border 0.5s linear; The first transition here works
on only the background, and the second (after the comma) only applies to the border.
This means that a hover state that changes the background would take 1 second and
the transition of the border would take 0.5 seconds.

Homework
In this chapter we looked at how multiple effects could be handled by a single
transition, and how multiple transitions can be used together. It’s worth take a look at
the CodePen examples for each:
• Example 1: Fancy button
• Example 2: Cat Hover card
Can you think of ways these sorts of transitions might help in a project you’re
currently working on?
We’ve covered a lot so far. Next we’ll take a look at how we can apply these
transitions using JavaScript.

Chapter 10

Transitions
and JavaScript
So far we’ve been using the transition property in CSS to animate between two states,
a non-hover and a hover (or focus) state.

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These transitions have required hovering over the element. This isn’t the only way we
can trigger animations, so today we’ll cover two ways we can use JavaScript to
achieve the same result.

Add or remove classes

Since the power of transitions is to animate between two states, we can create those
states as separate classes. Then we add or remove these classes using JavaScript.
This example consists of a button and a content div. Initially the content container has
the class hide. In the CSS, the hide class gives it an opacity of
0.
We also have a second class in the CSS called show. This class has an opacity of
1.
When the button is clicked, we toggle the class of the div between hide and show. To
give it animation, we apply a transition to the div also.
See it in action on this CodePen.
If you’d like to read more, you might enjoy the article, Adding Appeal to Your
Animations on the Web.
Toward the end of this course we’ll look into how we can trigger transitions and
animations on scroll.

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 Figure 10.1: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/YPbxqa

43

Controlling transitions with JavaScript

We can go further than adding or removing classes. Using JavaScript we can set the CSS
properties directly like so:
element.style.transition = 'opacity 1s ease-out';
In this case, “element” is an element we’ve selected. For example, if an element has the ID “js-
show”, you could apply a transition to it using getElementById: document.getElementById('js-

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show').style.transition = 'opacity 1s ease-out'; When we do this, we must remember to include
vendor prefixes too. The above would need to be written:
document.getElementById('js-show').style.webkitTransition = 'opacity 1s ease-out';
document.getElementById('js-show').style.transition = 'opacity 1s ease-out'; Here the webkitTransition
applies to any browsers that would otherwise use the -webkit- prefix in CSS.

Let’s recap
In this chapter we’ve covered the transition property. We learned we can use this property
to tell a browser to animate from one state to another.

Along the way we’ve learned about the various properties: duration, delay, and timing
functions.
Putting these together we can create interesting combinations of effects, and even apply
multiple transitions to a single element.
Finally, we wrapped it up today by covering how to apply these transitions using JavaScript.
Transitions are but one part of the CSS Animation puzzle. Next we’ll cover the animation
property.

Homework
Before we start looking at the animation property, take some time to think about how you
use transitions.
Can you think of ways they could help smooth the interactions or state changes on your
pages? How might they add appeal?

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Chapter 11

Animations in action
Now that we’ve looked at the transition property, let’s take a deeper look at the
animation property.

A symbiotic relationship
The animation property is applied to an element just like a transition. It also needs a second
part, called keyframes.
.element { animation: ...
}

@keyframes animation-name {
/* Keyframes go here */
}
One benefit of having the keyframes defined separately is that it allows us to create
animations that can be reused multiple times.

The animation property

Applying these keyframes to an element is done with the animation property. It is
quite similar to transition but with some extra properties. An animation could be
written as the following shorthand:
animation: change-background 4s linear infinite; Written as individual
properties it would look like:
animation-name: change-background; animation-duration: 4s;
animation-timing-function: linear; animation-repeat: infinite;
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Where a transition takes a property, such as “background” or “all”, the animation
property is given the name of the set of keyframes that describe the animation
sequence.
Animations have some properties that transitions don’t. For example, we can tell the
animation to alternate back and forth rather than looping from the beginning each
time.

Keyframes
A set of keyframes in CSS is a series of stops along the way through an animation. Each
“keyframe” is a written as a percentage.
I find it helps to describe this using an example. Let’s start with a div on a web page
that changes background over time. It begins with a blue background, changes to an
orange background and then finally green.

If we tried to explain to someone how these background colours changed over time, we
might say something like:
“Start with a blue background, then orange background halfway through and finish
with a green background”
Or, if we wanted to be more precise, we could use percentages to explain the timing:
“Start at 0% of the way through with a blue background, then by 50% through be
orange, and at 100% have a green background” We could then summarise this as:
0% Blue
50% Green
100% Orange

42
With these percentages we’ve created a series of “waypoints” that an animation might
pass through. All we need to do now is tell the browser that these percentages are in
fact keyframes and give the animation a name. The result is this:
@keyframes change-background {
0% {
background: blue;
}
50% { background:
orange;
}
100% {
background: green;
}
}
The animation is called “change-background”. We’ll use that later when applying the
keyframes to an element.
As you read the code from the top down, the percentages are describing how far
through the animation each of these keyframes takes place. We can see it in action
here:

Figure 11.1: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/WbqNwd?editors=110

As the animation takes place, the browser creates the in-between frames needed to go
from each of the background colours to the next. By telling the browser that we
wanted the div to begin one colour, be another one half way through and finish on a
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third, the browser can do the work of creating the animation between each of these
points.
I’ve put together a CodePen example showing this in action.
Earlier, I mentioned using the animation-direction property to have an animation alternate.
Here’s how it would look:

In this case I’ve changed the animation-direction property to alternate. See it on

CodePen here.

Prefixes
For the moment it’s still necessary to use the -webkit- prefix on the animation
property. I won’t add it to examples, but it will be needed for your animations to
work in browsers such as Safari.
In CodePen you can use the “Autoprefixer” option within the CSS settings. For local
development, I use the Gulp version of Autoprefixer. Prefix Free is a decent
alternative also.

Homework
Open up this keyframes example and try changing the code. See if you can break it, and
fix it. Even better, if you come up with something cool, let me know!

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I love seeing how you’re getting on. You can email me or get in touch on Twitter.

Chapter 12

Animation properties
Before we work on more animation examples, let’s take a look at each of the animation
properties.
Like the transition property, the animation property can be written using shorthand, or any of
these properties can be specified individually.

animation-delay
Similar to transition-delay, we can use this property to make the animation wait before
starting. This can be particularly useful in situations where there are multiple
animations taking place.
If the animation loops, the delay does not apply each time it loops. The delay only applies
to when the animation is applied to the element.
It’s actually possible to give this property a negative value, such as -1s. This would

cause the animation to start as if a second has already elapsed. animation-

direction
Animations normally begin at 0% and finish at 100%. Using animation-direction we
use the values normal, reverse, alternate and alternate-reverse to control the direction.
“Reverse” causes it to play (and loop) from 100% to 0%, while “alternate” plays from 0%
to 100% and back again to 0%.
animation-duration
This is the length of the animation. Similar to transition-duration, this takes a value

such as 1s for one second or 200ms for two hundred milliseconds. animation-fill-
mode
By default, an animation will play and then the element returns to its normal state.
Using animation-fill-mode we can have the animation “stick” at either the end or
beginning state.
Using the value forwards tells the animation to finish and stay on the last keyframe.
The value backwards returns to the first keyframe when the animation finishes.
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An example of this is the bouncer animation on Hop.ie. The animation plays once and

finishes on the last frame. This is using the value forwards. animation-iteration-

count
This is the number of times the animation plays. By default it will play once. You can
specify a number, or “infinite” to have it loop forever.

animation-name
The animation-name refers to the keyframes associated with the animation. For
example, if the animation-name is set to “foo”, it would use a set of keyframes like:
@keyframes foo { ...
} animation-play-state

If you ever need to pause or resume an animation, this property lets you do so. It takes
the values of running or paused, with the default being running. One idea might be to
set this value on an animation using JavaScript. animation-timing-function

This takes the same values the timing function property in transitions, but behaves a little
differently. While a timing function, such as ease-out applies to the entire transition, the
timing function of an animation applies between each keyframe.
This means that the following keyframes would see the animation starting fast and
slowing toward 50%, then picking up fast and slowing down before 100%.
@keyframes foo {
0% {
/* Animation starts fast and ease-out makes it slow down before 50% */
}
50% {
/* Again, starts fast and slows toward 100% */
}
100% {
/* fin */
}
}
This can be tricky to work with. Often when creating keyframe animations I’ll choose
the linear timing function and handle the way the animation is paced using keyframes.
Having said that, cubic-bezier timing functions can create some great effects when used
with animations, so have a go.

46
Using timing functions within keyframes
It’s worth noting that when you specify a timing function for an animation, the timing
function applies to each keyframe of the animation.
This means that if you were to specify four keyframes, the timing function would
apply to each. An ease-out function would slow down as it approached each
keyframe.
For that reason we would usually define the timing function for animations as linear, and
control the pacing on a per-keyframe basis:
@keyframes my-animation {
0% {
... animation-timing-function: linear;
}
50% {
... animation-timing-function: ease-out;
}
}
In this case the first half of the animation will be linear, and the second half would use the
ease-out timing function.

Homework
I’ve created a simple keyframe animation here on CodePen. The properties are listed in the
CSS. Try changing some of these properties, and see what happens.

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Chapter 13

Keyframes in action
So far we’ve been introduced to the animation properties, and had a chance to see how it
relies on keyframes. Next we’ll cover keyframes in greater detail.

Things to look out for

There are a couple of things about keyframes I’d like to cover before getting into a
practical example. The first is an alternate syntax you may see, using the keywords
from and to.
@keyframes name
{ from { ...
}
to {
...
}
}
While this is simple an alternate way of writing 0% and 100%, it can be simpler to
understand and useful for simple animations.
You may have noticed that sometimes more than one percentage value is used on the
same line. This is a way to have the animation pause for a while, or hold a particular
state. For example:
@keyframes name {
0%, 20% { opacity:
0;
}
100% { opacity:
1;
}
}
This example will have the element start with an opacity of 0, and stay invisible until
20% through the animation, at which time it will then begin to animate toward an
opacity of 1.
We’ll make use of this tomorrow when we have multiple animations we want to stay in
sync with each other.

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Example: Save button wiggle effect
Remember the “Save” button example from back in chapter 1? Let’s revisit that
example and look at how keyframes are used along with the animation property to
create the effect.

Figure 13.1: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/KwEQdQ

Before adding any animation I added some basic styles to a button to make it look like
CodePen’s. An orange border at the top, dark gradient and white text. I’m using
absolute positioning in the demo to make sure the button is in the middle of the screen.
The first thing I generally do is apply an animation property to the element. Like so:
button {
animation: wiggle 2s linear infinite;
}
In this case we’re applying a set of keyframes called “wiggle”, and the animation runs
for two seconds with the “linear” timing function. There’s also a new attribute here,
infinite.
The “infinite” value here is for the property animation-iteration-count. We can have
animation repeat a set number of times, and by default they repeat once. In this case
it’ll repeat an infinite number of times.
Next, we plan out what these keyframes are for the “wiggle” animation. Here’s the
result:
@keyframes wiggle {
0%, 7% {
transform: rotateZ(0);
}
15% { transform: rotateZ(-15deg);
}
20% { transform: rotateZ(10deg);

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 }
25% { transform: rotateZ(-10deg);
}
30% { transform: rotateZ(6deg);
}
35% { transform: rotateZ(-4deg);
}
40%, 100% { transform:
rotateZ(0);
}
}
What we have here is a series of waypoints for the browser to animate between. Each
one rotates the “Save” button on the z-axis. The angles start bigger and get smaller
over the course of the animation.
Here’s how the animation tilts the button back and forth over time: We can see that
the browser creates the in-between steps between each keyframe. Without relying on
fancy timing functions, this animation manages to add a lot of character to the button.
Here’s a CodePen showing the Save button wiggle in action.

Figure 13.2: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/pvXJqp

50
Homework
I’ve created a new CodePen with a single animated element. It makes use of an
“animation-timing-function” within the keyframes and has a series of keyframes creating a
relatively complex animation.
What happens when you take some frames away? Or change the percentage values?
Can you make the cube do something else? See if you can create a feeling of “life” in
something so simple!

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Chapter 14

Multiple animations
In this chapter we’ll be looking at how we can make use of multiple sets of keyframes running at
the same time.

Traffic lights
There are times when we want multiple animations on a page to stay in sync,
but at the same time each animation has its own timing. A good example that illustrates this is
traffic lights
Here we have a simple (UK-style) traffic light pattern:
We have three lights, each with their own pattern of being off and on. We can create this by
giving each light their own animation.
.red { animation: red 10s linear infinite;
}
.amber { animation: amber 10s linear infinite;
}
.green { animation: green 10s linear infinite;
}
We have three animations, one for each light. Each animation lasts the same length of
time so that when they loop, they won’t go out of sync. Next we need to plan the
keyframes.
When creating this example I found it helpful to think of the lights as a grid.
The animation happens from left to right, with each light being on or off at

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Figure 14.1: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/ogRRdR?editors=010 certain times.

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The grid is divided up into 5 columns. This means that we can deal with “chunks” of
20% and create sets of keyframes from these chunks.
Taking each light one at a time, we can start with the red light. It would be on for the
first and second chunks, then off for the rest of the animation. The resulting
keyframes:
@keyframes red {
0% {
background: black;
}
2%, 40% {
background-color: red;
}
42%, 100% { background:
black;
}
}
I’ve added a 2% gap at the beginning and had the third part of the animation begin at
42% as this adds a little bit of a fade to the way the traffic light appears. It’s the subtle
stuff that makes all the difference.
With the red light done, we look at the amber light on the grid.
The amber light is off at the beginning, on for one chunk, then off for two chunks, and
finally on again. The keyframes for this light:
@keyframes amber {
0%, 20% {
background: black;
}
22%, 40% { background:
#FF7E00;
}

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 42%, 80% { background:
black;
}
82%, 100% { background:
#FF7E00;
}
}
Lastly, the green light. This light is off for the first two chunks, then on for two, and
finally off for one.
@keyframes green {
0%, 40% {
background: black;
}
42%, 80% { background:
green;
}
82%, 100% { background:
black;
}
}
We can put it all together and see it in action.

Further reading
For more reading on the subject of keyframe syntax, do check out CSS tricks article on the
subject.

Homework
Today’s homework is a challenge. The traffic light example might look strange to you
as it follows the UK pattern.
Can you start with the traffic light example and change it so that it works more like traffic
lights in the USA or elsewhere?

Chapter 15

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Animation recap
We’ve covered a lot of detail so far! I hope it’s making sense.
When learning this, I must admit it took me a while for this animation and keyframe
stuff to make sense to me. If it’s not clear yet, don’t be frustrated. Keep at it, and bit
by bit the various tricks of using animation in HTML and CSS will become clear.
In this chapter we’re going to take a moment to recap what we learned. But first, we’ll take
a look at that homework challenge!

Homework challenge: Traffic lights

The homework challenge should have been easy. Well, it’s easy if you know how.
I’ve created an updated version of the UK-based traffic light demo, this time changing
the sequence to remove the “red + amber” stage.
See it in action here. I’ve made the colour scheme match what Google suggested American
traffic lights look like.

Recap: Animations
In this section we looked at the animation property and how it works alongside keyframes.
Like a transition, only different
While the animation property looks and works in a way that’s similar to transition, it
has some subtle differences. While a transition will only occur when an element
changes, animations can begin straight away. Using the various properties, animations
can loop a certain number of times (or forever), and can even begin with a negative
value for their delay. This starts the animation with it already having progressed.
By default, animations will play from start to finish, then jump back to their default
state. We can have the animation freeze at its end point by using the animation-
direction property of forwards.
Animations use timing-functions, much like transitions. However, the timing function
applies to each individual keyframe, not the entire set of keyframes. Instead, you can
specify animation-timing-function within a keyframe for more granular control.
Finally, animations can be specified in shorthand, just like transitions:
animation: keyframe-name 2s forwards linear;

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Keyframes
Every animation needs to reference a set of keyframes. These keyframes are a series of
percentages, describing each “stage” of the animation. The browser fills in the gaps
automatically.

Keyframes have their own shorthand (to and from) when you want to only go from one
state to another.
Stacking percentages beside each other can have the animation “pause” at that stage.
Lastly, it’s possible to omit the 0% keyframe and the browser will take the element’s
style as implied. For example, to have something fade away, we don’t necessarily
have to give it a starting opacity of 1 (assuming the element is already visible):
@keyframes name {
100% { opacity:
0;
}
}
Putting them together
When we want to use an animation, we always have the two pieces:
.element { animation: keyframe-
name ...
}
@keyframes keyframe-name
{ ... }

Homework
At this point we should be clear on the different between the animation property and the
transition property.
Have a look at some of the Principles of Animation for the Web examples. Each is
made entirely with HTML and CSS, using keyframe animation. Try forking one and
see what you can do with it.

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Chapter 16

Storytelling
Now that we’ve covered both the transition and animation property, let’s combine both into an
animation with a hover effect.

Heroes
Many sites like to make use of a large, attention-grabbing image at the top of their
homepage. Sometimes called a “hero image”, this is usually a full-width banner style
element.
A nice example I found recently was the Fabric landing page. A CSS animatiom shows how
Fabric works as a modular framework.
Another interesting example is the Mailchimp homepage. Here the hero image tells a
story by demonstrating how emails are created.
You may have also seen it in action on my CSS Animation 101 email course landing page:
In each of these examples, they use animation to set the tone of the page and illustrate what the
site is about.

Example: Scrolling background

Let’s create an example of our own. In this example I’ve created a “web page” style
graphic that moves up and down the screen.
For a bit of interactivity, the animation pauses and a message is shown when a mouse
cursor hovers over the screen. It makes use of both animations and transitions to
achieve this effect.

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Figure 16.1: Source: https://get.fabric.io/

Figure 16.2: Source: http://mailchimp.com

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 Figure 16.3: Source: https://cssanimation.rocks/courses/animation-101/

Figure 16.4: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/LEwedW?editors=110 See it in action here.

Part 1: Background animation

To set up this example we begin with the HTML element to contain it:
<div class="screen"></div>

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We can make the “screen” div look like a monitor or iPad using some styles:
.screen { background: #e25865 url(//cssanimation.rocks/screen/images/screen_bg.png) no-repeat top ce background-
size: 100% auto; border: 2em solid #fff; border-radius: 1em; width: 40em; height: 30em;
}
We have some styles here defining the size and border, and setting a background image.
The effect we’re creating is based on moving a background image. The background
image is taller than the screen and has a background-size of 100% auto. This means
the background will fit the width of our container but be taller.
With a background image to animate, we can now write the keyframes that make it look
like someone is scrolling a web page:
@keyframes scroll {
0%, 10% { background-position: 0 0;
}
20%, 30% { background-position: 0 -
22em;
}
50%, 60% { background-position: 0 -
44em;
}
90%, 100% { background-position: 0 0;
}
}
The property we’re animating is background-position. With this property we can move
it up and down. It begins at 0 0, which means zero distance from the left, and zero
from the top.
In the next frames we have the background move 22 ems up, then 44 ems up, then
return to the top of the page. Let’s create an animation property to apply this to the
“screen” element.
.screen { animation: scroll 5s infinite cubic-bezier(.52,-0.39,.3,1.43); }
This CSS is applying the a set of keyframes called “scroll”, telling it to take 5
seconds, run forever and use a cubic-bezier timing function. In this case the cubic
bezier function gives the animation the bounciness as without it the movement would
look less lifelike.
I generated this bezier over on cubic-bezier.com. If you haven’t bookmarked that site yet,
I’d absolutely recommend you do!

Part 2: Adding the hover transition

It’s a good idea to pause or stop an animation once it’s finished or when you want
people to concentrate on something else. Constant animation can be distracting, so
let’s make use of animation-play-state to pause the animation when on hover.
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.screen:hover { animation-play-state: paused;
}
This means that when a cursor hovers over the animation, it will pause. And when the
cursor moves away again, it will resume its default playing state.
You can achieve this with JavaScript also. One possibility is to have some
JavaScript disable the animation when the user interacts with another part of the page,
or perhaps when they scroll away. We’ll take a look at how to enable animations on
scroll later.

Adding a message
We can also go further and have a message transition into place when a user hovers over the
element. To do this we’ll need a little more HTML:
<div class="screen">
<div class="message">Hover message!</div>
</div>
In the CodePen CSS we position this message in the middle of the “screen” and make it
invisible.
.message {
/*... positioning styles ...*/ opacity: 0;
transition: all 0.4s ease-out;
}
We can then show it on hover using a transition:
.screen:hover .message { opacity: 1;
}
Since we set a transition on the “message” styling, it creates the animation both when
the cursor hovers over the element and when it leaves. The paused animation and
transition effects look like this:

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Figure 16.5: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/LEwedW?editors=110

Summary
In this chapter we combined both an animation and a transition to create an effect that
could be useful for landing pages and product tours. We made use of the animation-play-
state to make sure the animation stopped when we wanted it to.

Homework
Take a moment to think about what we’ve covered so far.
We covered a lot. Combining animations and transitions is a powerful way to bring pages
to life.
When thinking about how this can apply to your work, think about how it might be
controlled too. When might animation work for your users’ benefit, and when might
it work against it? It’s great to know how to animate but even better to know when
not to.

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Chapter 17

Star Wars
Get out the popcorn! In this chapter we’ll have some fun making an SVG animation.
We will be building the Star Wars movie title from the “The Force Awakens” trailer.

Figure 17.1: Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

This example combines CSS animation with some other CSS properties you may find
helpful, specifically the transforms scale, translate and rotate.

Transform: Not an animation property

While it may sound like it creates an animation, the transform property is in fact used
setting a static position, skew or scale of an element. We can use it to create great
effects but to do so we need to have a different transform for each keyframe or state
we animate.

Transform: scale(), translateZ() and rotateY()

We can make elements larger or smaller using scale. Using translateZ we can move
elements in the Z-axis. This axis would be the one represented by drawing a line from
you, through the monitor.
In this case we’ll be using a combination of scale and translateZ to make it look like
some words are flying through space.

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Lastly we’ll use rotateY to spin the letters of the tagline. Rotating around the Y-axis will
require a bit of 3D work in the browser.

SVG, HTML and CSS

In preparation for this example I made two SVG files for the Star and Wars parts of
the logo. Do feel free to grab them to use if you want to play along. The HTML for
the demo is as follows:
<div class="starwars-demo">
<img src="//cssanimation.rocks/demo/starwars/images/star.svg" alt="Star" class="star">
<img src="//cssanimation.rocks/demo/starwars/images/wars.svg" alt="Wars" class="wars"> <h2 class="byline"
id="byline">The Force Awakens</h2> </div>
A static image of some stars is used for the background. The font in the byline was tricky
to find, so I’ve referenced the web font “Lato” in this example.
With some absolute positioning to position the content in the middle of the screen, we begin
with this:

Animating the Star and Wars

We want the larger text to fade into view, while also starting larger and getting smaller
over time. This is a good case for the scale() transform. Let’s use it on the word “Star”
with these keyframes:
@keyframes star {
0% {
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 opacity: 0;
transform: scale(1.5) translateY(-0.75em);
}
20% { opacity:
1;
}
89% { opacity: 1; transform:
scale(1);
}
100% { opacity:
0;
transform: translateZ(-1000em);
}
}
There are two properties that change over the course of this animation. The opacity and
transform. The opacity change makes it start transparent, and fade away at the end so that we
can loop the animation.
The transform begins by setting the scale at 1.5. This means that the initial size of the
text is 150% larger than normal. At 89%, we set the transform property to a scale of
1. This means that between 0% and 89%, the scale goes from 150% to 100%.
The final transformZ causes the words to zoom away quickly. We can
apply these keyframes to the word “Star” like so:
.star { animation: star 10s ease-out infinite;
}
A similar set of keyframes is used for the word “Wars”.

Making it 3D
Using 3D transforms in CSS, whether translating along the Z-axis, or rotating around
the Y and Z axes requires that we set a stage for the 3D. In HTML terms this means
we create a container, and tell the browser that some 3D stuff is going to happen.
We do this by adding the following to the .starwars-demo div:
.starwars-demo { perspective: 800px;
transform-style: preserve3d;
}
These two properties tell the browser that the container’s children should be
positioned in 3D, rather than flat. CSS Tricks goes into more detail on the property.
Secondly, the persective property tells the browser how “deep” the scene needs to be.
In case we’ve made it 800px. Smaller values create more “extreme” perspective
effects as the scene is shorter.
With that covered, we’ll introduce the tagline.

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The Force Awakens
The tagline “The Force Awakens” appears in the trailer with each letter spinning into
place. We can create this effect using the rotateY transform. In this case we’ve
wrapped each of the letters in a span element, so that we can apply animation to each
letter.
An issue I quickly discovered was that there isn’t a straightforward way to animate
each of the letters in the byline. My first approach was to manually wrap each letter in
a span tag. This worked but made the HTML a little messy. The current demo
includes some JavaScript (thanks to Tady for the assist) that wraps each letter
automatically in a span.
We’re going to apply an animation to each letter. First, the
keyframes:
@keyframes spin-letters {
0%, 10% { opacity:
0;
transform: rotateY(90deg);
}
30% { opacity:
1;
}
70%, 86% { transform:
rotateY(0); opacity: 1;
}
95%, 100% { opacity: 0;
}
}
To begin with, the letters are rotated 90 degrees, then by 70% through the animation, they’ve
been animated to face the viewer.
We can apply this set of keyframes to each span like so:
.byline span { animation: spin-letters 10s linear infinite;
}
The result is each of the span containers that hold each letter will fade and spin slowly
into place, before fading away at the end of the animation. Putting it together we have
the finished demo.

Homework
If you have time I’d encourage you to take a look through the CSS section of the
CodePen version.

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You may notice some “media” queries in the CSS. We use these to resize the example for
smaller devices. Try changing some of the animation keyframes, or

Figure 17.2: Source: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/pJzwEw?editors=110 the

transform values to see what happens.

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Chapter 18

Revealing content on scroll

A popular use for animation on the web is adding movement to elements when the
browser scrolls. In this chapter we’ll take a look at how to do this.
Here’s today’s demo on CodePen. Try scrolling down the page, and see how the quotes and
cats fade into place.

Wow.js
Many sites trigger custom animations when you scroll to a certain point. They could
start playing a video, trigger a complex keyframe animation, or just have items fade
into place to draw attention to them.
In each case, what’s happening is that there’s some JavaScript that adds a class to an
element when it’s visible on screen. We can then attach animations to the class, so that
the browser scrolling results in the animation starting at the right time.
There are many JavaScript options that add classes, and one I’ve found easy to use is
Wow.js. Let’s use it to create a simple example where content fades into view as we
scroll.

">
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Using Wow.js
Using Wow.js involves two steps. The first is to download the JavaScript. Place the
wow.min.js file in your project’s JavaScript folder. Next step is to reference this file
from within your HTML:
<script src="javascripts/wow.min.js"></script>
(Assuming your folder is called javascripts - change as needed)
Then, we invoke the JavaScript using this command (paste it after the previous code):
<script> new
WOW().init();
</script>
We can now add “wow” classes to our content and Wow.js will take care of working out
whether our content is on-screen.

Adding “wow” classes

If we have an element we want to animate on scroll, start by making sure it has the
class “wow”: <p class="wow">...</p>
This means that when the browser scrolls this content onto the screen, Wow.js will add
“animated” to the class, like this:
<p class="wow animated">...</p>
If we had an animation on our p.animated elements, the animation would only happen when
this class is added.

Hiding and showing

For our demo, we’ll hide all elements with the wow class, and show them when they have
the animated class. First, we hide them:
.wow { opacity:
0;
transition: all 0.5s 0.5s ease-out;
}
We also apply a transition here so that the element will fade in. Notice the second 0.5s.
In this case we’re also adding a delay of half a second. This will allow the element a
chance to properly scroll into the viewport before it fades in. The next code defines
how the element will look with Wow.js’s animated class added:
.animated { opacity: 1;
}
We should now have a situation where items will fade in as the user scrolls! See it in
action on the demo.

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Using Animate.css
Wow.js has been designed to work well with the CSS framework Animate.css. I’ve not
used in this example yet as it’s good to understand how to create our own transitions,
but it’s worth looking at some of the transitions Animate.css gives us out of the box.
In this example I’ve used Animate.css. Note how there are no animations or
transitions in the CSS. Instead, I’ve added a class to the HTML to tell Animate.css
which animation to apply:
<section class="image wow bounceInUp">
The class bounceInUp is a reference to one of Animate.css’s many built in
animations. If you select the “cog” on the CSS section in the demo, you’ll see that
I’ve referenced the Animate.css framework under “External CSS file”.

Using Modernizr
It’s generally a good idea to protect against situations in which we hide content and
show it again using JavaScript. People may not have JavaScript enabled or working for
some reason or another. A script such as Modernizr can be used to handle this. It’ll add
a js class to the body of the document, and we can then bring that into our styles.
I’ve included Modernizr in the demo.

Homework
Making content fade into place is a great start, but what ways can you imagine this
being used to add value to your designs and sites? When browsing, look out for times
when content seems to start animating as you scroll to it.
When does it work, and when does it not work so well?

Chapter 19

Accessibility
So far we’ve been looking at what animation on the web is, and how to create
animation. Before we finish up for this course, let’s take a moment to think about
what we can do to make sure we do right by our visitors. There are many ways
animation can help our content, as well as ways it can get in the way.

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Make sure content is accessible
An example we’ve used a few times is when we animate content to show it on screen.
If content is beginning in a hidden state, we need to be careful that it doesn’t remain
hidden for some users. Older browsers support CSS animations to varying degrees,
and JavaScript may not always work. We can use tools such as Modernizr to design
around potential issues.
We also use animation to convey meaning and intent in our designs. When designing
animations, do keep in mind that some people won’t be able to see them. They may
be using a screen reader or have different browser settings that cause your animations
to not work as intended. Make sure important information is available regardless of
whether the animation works.
Just that autoplaying video is bad for users, animation that plays automatically can be
distracting from other content on the page. Try to limit where and when animation
happens to situations where you want your visitors to be distracted by it. This might
also mean limiting how long an animation plays for, or ensuring it has stopped before
your visitor needs to focus elsewhere.

Give control
The W3C recommends that any content that is blinking, scrolling or autoupdating for
more than 5 seconds should have a means of pausing or removing the motion. Using
the animation-play-state is one way to pause animations as needed, as seen on hover
here.

Allow for alternate inputs

A growing percentage of your visitors will be using phones. When on a phone, there
is no cursor and no hover state. We need to design around this. One option I often use
is to detect a tap and add an “active” class to the target. I then add transitions or
animations to both the :hover as well as the .active states.

Confusion
Sometimes websites go too far and try to animate all the things. This doesn’t just muddy
the site’s message, it can cause confusion. This is especially true of UI. When adding
animation to elements on the page that visitors interact with, make sure that it’s
obvious why the animation has been triggered. Your visitors don’t have time to
decipher complexity in either the visual design or the way it moves, so try to be clear.

72
Don’t make me sick
Too much animation, or the wrong kind of animation, can make people feel sick.
When Apple introduced iOS7, an updated operating system for their phone, it brought
with it a lot more motion and animation. Some of this was enough to make people
sick. Some people, like myself, struggle to read in a car or bus as the motion makes us
feel ill, and others can’t play certain video games for more than a few minutes at a
time.
The reason this happens is down to the way our vestibular system works. We have 3
tubes in our ears that help us determine where our head is in 3D space. It’s possible to
trick our minds into thinking we’re moving, and then when the vestibular system
doesn’t echo the movement, our brains get confused and we feel ill.
That we get sick is an evolutionary side effect. Throwing up is a complex thing, and we
have a special part of our brains dedicated to handling it. As it happens, this part of the
brain is located near the part that deals with balance, and so we feel ill.
This is something that could become more of an issue as we begin to see more
wearable technology. When designing larger animations, be sure to test whether
people are comfortable with the types of motion in place.
Vestibular.org is a great starting point to learn more about this topic.

Accessibility is for everyone’s benefit

Accessibility isn’t just for people using screen readers or alternative means of
browsing our content. We’re all distracted sometimes, network connections drop,
we’re checking our phones in a queue at the post office or glancing at directions when
driving. We should be aware of the ways people might use what we make and ensure
our animations don’t get in the way.

Homework
If your job involves designing or building interfaces for people to use, do take time to
read NNGroup’s Animation for Attention and Comprehension. Think about how
people might use your work, and what it might mean if they couldn’t see the
animation.

Chapter 20

Now you know CSS animation!

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You’ve completed CSS Animation 101! I hope you’ve enjoyed this book.
Before we finish up, let’s explore some resources you might want to bookmark and
explore as you go further with CSS animation.

CSS Animation cheatsheet

I’ve prepared a transitions and animations cheat sheet (PDF) that sums up the various
properties of each. It is designed to fit onto one A4 page. Enjoy!

Resources to bookmark
It’s good to know how to create our own CSS animations and transitions, but
sometimes it’s handy to build on existing platforms. Here are some great tools that we
can use to save time and get the result we want quickly.

Animate.css
Animate.css describes itself as “just add water” CSS animations. You can reference
the CSS file and add any of the Animate classes to see them come to life. Here’s an
example using Animate.css.
Hover.css
A nice alternative to Animate.css, Hover.css is another wide variety of ready to use
animations that you can apply to links, buttons, logos or any other HTML element.

Other tools
CSS animation is pretty powerful, and can achieve a lot without needing to resort to
other technology such as JavaScript. However it’s not the right tool for all situations.
Sometimes there’s a need for more complex animations, and JavaScript can help take
things further. The best packages build on CSS to make use of its speed and browser
support, but let you do more.

GSAP
Greensock Animation Platform is a JavaScript-based method of creating more
advanced animations and offers fine control and great performance. There’s a bit of a
learning curve but it’s a powerful tool.

Snabbt.js

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Snabbt is a powerful and elegant way to create more complex animation using custom
timing functions. It generates transform matrices for the browser to animate, resulting
in very good performance.

CSS Animate
CSS Animate is a tool for generating keyframe animations. It helps design animations by
dragging an object around and uses a handy timeline approach.

Cubic-bezier.com
For when you want to create a feeling of life in your timing, Cubic-bezier.com is my
go-to tool. A simple tool that helps sculpt timing functions. Alternately, a similar tool
is built into Chrome’s inspector.

Next steps
A question some have asked is “what do we do to progress past the 101 stage?”. My
suggestion would be to look for challenges. Look to sites such as Dribbble.com, or
CodePen.io for inspiration. Look for ideas from popular products (I frequently remake
Apple designs), movies or TV shows. Wonder, how would I capture that effect on the
web? Would CSS be a good way to do it?
I’d also suggest reading some of the posts on CSS Tricks, SaraSoueidan.com, and of
course CSSAnimation.rocks.
So, if you don’t want this knowledge to fade, practice. Find reasons to use it, and look
for what interests you. If you can make it fun, it’ll be all the easier. # Level up your
CSS animation skills!
Congratulations for finishing this introduction to CSS animation! I hope you’ve
enjoyed it. Adding animation to your web projects is a great way to make them stand
out.
Introducing an essential video course: Level Up Your CSS Animation Skills Continue
learning how to create amazing animations with over 4 hours of high quality video
lessons and lifetime access to all video content, cheatsheets and guides.
You will learn how to:
• Create an amazing animated hero header
• Bring your UI to life with hover, touch and button animations
• Wow your visitors with scroll and parallax animations
• Build your very own animated carousel
• Adjust animations to fit all sizes of devices and browsers
• Optimise your CSS animations for reuse and size
• Each with fun examples you can follow along, step by step By the end of the course you’ll have the skills
you need to create an impressive animated landing page!

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Go to https://courses.cssanimation.rocks/ now to see what you can learn!

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