Search the Community

GSAP 3 is the most significant upgrade we have ever had. With 50+ new features, there's a lot to be excited about, but to keep this post manageable, we’ll cover only 5. You might also be interested in the GSAP 3 highlights video. See the release notes for all the juicy details. 1. Half the size of the old TweenMax! No kidding! GSAP retains almost all of its old functionality while adding 50+ features. We’ve learned a lot over the years and hopefully that shows. The core has been completely rebuilt from the ground up as modern ES modules. 2. Simplified API No more “Lite” and “Max” flavors. TweenMax, TweenLite, TimelineLite, and TimelineMax have all been consolidated into a single "gsap" object. So simple! For example: //simple tween like the old TweenMax.to(...) gsap.to(".class", {duration:2, x:100}); //create a timeline and add a tween var tl = gsap.timeline(); tl.to(".class", {duration:2, x:100}); Internally, there's one "Tween" class (replaces TweenLite/TweenMax) and one "Timeline" class (replaces TimelineLite/TimelineMax), and both have all of the features like repeat, yoyo, etc. When you call one of the gsap methods like .to(), .from(), etc., it returns an instance of the appropriate class with easily chainable methods. Duration is now defined in the vars object. This allows several benefits such as: Improved readability It fits much better with keyframes It allows default durations to be inherited (more on that below) You can use function-based values //OLD - duration was 2nd parameter TweenMax.to(".class", 1, {x:100}); //NEW - duration is now a property of the vars object gsap.to(".class", {duration:1, x:100}); All tweens are now stagger-able. There’s no need for the old staggerTo(), staggerFrom(), or staggerFromTo() methods because you can add staggers to regular tweens: //simple stagger gsap.to(".class", { x: "+=100", duration: 1, stagger: 0.5 //space each element's animation out by 0.5 seconds }); //advanced stagger gsap.to(".class", { x: "+=100", duration: 1, stagger: { amount: 2, from: "center", grid: "auto", onComplete: myFunction //define callbacks inside the stagger to make them apply to each sub-tween } }); See the Pen GSAP 3.0 Stagger demo by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. For more information about GSAP’s advanced stagger functionality, see this codepen. New, more compact ease format. less typing, more readable, and zero import hassles. Here's the new convention for all of the standard eases: //old way Elastic.easeOut Elastic.easeIn Elastic.easeInOut Elastic.easeOut.config(1, 0.5) SteppedEase.config(5) //new way "elastic" //same as "elastic.out" "elastic.in" "elastic.inOut" "elastic(1, 0.5)" //same as "elastic.out(1, 0.5)" "steps(5)" Backwards compatible The new GSAP even adjusts itself to accommodate the old syntax! There's technically no more TweenMax, TweenLite, TimelineLite, or TimelineMax, but they're all aliased so that the vast majority of legacy code still works, untouched! You don't have to rewrite all your code for GSAP 3, but we'd recommend shifting to the new, more concise syntax for all your new projects. 3. Inheritance/Defaults You don't have to keep setting the same ease over and over again...or duration...or whatever. Just set defaults on the parent timeline and let them be inherited by all its children! For example this repetitive code can be shortened, saving you time. //old way, without timeline defaults var tl = new TimelineMax(); tl.to(obj1, 2, {ease: Power2.easeInOut, rotation: -180}) .to(obj2, 2, {ease: Power2.easeInOut, rotation: -360}) .to(obj3, 2, {ease: Power2.easeInOut, rotation: -180}); //new way, with timeline defaults var tl = gsap.timeline({defaults:{ease: "power2.inOut", duration: 2}}); tl.to(obj1, {rotation: -180}) //child tweens will inherit the duration and from the parent timeline! .to(obj2, {rotation: -360}) .to(obj1, {rotation: -180}); See the Pen GSAP 3.0 Cube Walk by Pete Barr (@petebarr) on CodePen. Any defaults you set this way will get pushed into every child tween - it’s not limited to a certain subset of properties. This can really save you some typing! Inherited defaults are easily overwritten anytime a property is declared on a child. 4. All new MotionPathPlugin The new MotionPathPlugin makes it very easy to move any element along an SVG <path>! For more information about the MotionPathPlugin, check out its documentation and the video below. See the Pen GSAP 3.0 Stagger demo by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Club GreenSock members also get access to the new MotionPathHelper utility that lets you EDIT the motion path interactively in the browser. It’s never been so easy to move elements along a path! 5. New utility methods GSAP 3 exposes some surprisingly useful utility methods that might save you time and hassle. Need values to snap to the closest one in an array? Use gsap.utils.snap(). Tired of trying to figure out how to pull a random element out of an array? Let gsap.utils.random() do it for you. Want to distribute any value among an array of elements, complete with easing? It’s a piece of cake with gsap.utils.distribute(). Here’s how to use the gsap.utils.interpolate() method: //numbers let value = gsap.utils.interpolate(0, 100, 0.5); // 50 //strings let value = gsap.utils.interpolate("20px", "40px", 0.5); // 30px //colors let value = gsap.utils.interpolate("red", "blue", 0.5); // rgba(128,0,128,1) //objects let value = gsap.utils.interpolate({a:0, b:10, c:"red"}, {a:100, b:20, c:"blue"}, 0.5); // {a: 50, b: 15, c: "rgba(128,0,128,1)"} There's also an explainer video about how to use it. Using GSAP's built in utility functions can make complex code simple. Check out the video below to learn more and see an example: For a full list of the utility functions, some demos, and how to use them, check out the docs. There's waaaaay more... We've only scratched the surface of all the improvements in GSAP 3. Check out the release notes for a full list of the features and changes. There's also an updated getting started page. Ready to play? GSAP 3 Starter Pen (a CodePen template that already has the GSAP 3 files loaded. Fork away and have a blast!) This pen allows you to copy the resource URLs easily. Or download the files to use locally. Using a build tool? npm install gsap will get you the files. If you're a Club GreenSock user, there's a gsap-bonus.tgz tarball file in the local download above that you can simply drop into your project's folder and then npm install ./gsap-bonus.tgz and BOOM, it'll be installed just like any other package! See the installation docs for more information. Questions? Bugs? Hit us up in the forums or contact us directly. We'd love to hear what you think of GSAP 3. Happy tweening!

The GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP) animates anything JavaScript can touch (CSS properties, SVG, React, canvas, generic objects, whatever) and solves countless browser inconsistencies, all with blazing speed (up to 20x faster than jQuery). See why GSAP is used by over 8,500,000 sites and many major brands. Hang in there through the learning curve and you'll discover how fun animating with code can be. We promise it's worth your time. Quick links Loading GSAP Tweening Basics CSSPlugin 2D and 3D transforms Easing Staggers Callbacks Sequencing with Timelines Timeline control Getter / Setter methods Club GreenSock We'll cover the most popular features here but keep the GSAP docs handy for all the details. First, let's talk about what GSAP actually does... GSAP is a property manipulator Animation ultimately boils down to changing property values many times per second, making something appear to move, fade, spin, etc. GSAP snags a starting value, an ending value and then interpolates between them 60 times per second. For example, changing the x coordinate of an object from 0 to 1000 over the course of 1 second makes it move quickly to the right. Gradually changing opacity from 1 to 0 makes an element fade out. Your job as an animator is to decide which properties to change, how quickly, and the motion's style (known as easing - we'll get to that later). To be technically accurate, we could have named GSAP the "GreenSock Property Manipulator" (GSPM) but that doesn't have the same ring. DOM, SVG, <canvas>, and beyond GSAP doesn't have a pre-defined list of properties it can handle. It's super flexible, adjusting to almost anything you throw at it. GSAP can animate all of the following: CSS: 2D and 3D transforms, colors, width, opacity, border-radius, margin, and almost every CSS value. SVG attributes: viewBox, width, height, fill, stroke, cx, r, opacity, etc. Plugins like MorphSVG and DrawSVG can be used for advanced effects. Any numeric value For example, an object that gets rendered to an <canvas>. Animate the camera position in a 3D scene or filter values. GSAP is often used with Three.js and Pixi.js. Once you learn the basic syntax you'll be able to use GSAP anywhere that JavaScript runs. This guide will focus on the most popular use case: animating CSS properties of DOM elements. (Note: if you're using React, read this too.) If you're using any of the following frameworks, these articles may help: React Vue Angular What is GSAP Exactly? GSAP is a suite of tools for scripted animation. It includes: The GSAP core - The lightweight core of the engine which animates any property of any object. It makes use of tweens and to give you more control over your animations. Extras like time-saving plugins, easing tools, utility functions, and more. Loading GSAP Downloading GSAP

Note: This page was created for GSAP version 2. We have since released GSAP 3 with many improvements. While it is backward compatible with most GSAP 2 features, some parts may need to be updated to work properly. Please see the GSAP 3 release notes for details. There are plenty of large and small updates in GSAP 2.1; here are a few highlights... Advanced staggers Advanced staggering makes it surprisingly simple to get rich, organic timing effects with very little code. Each tween's start time can be distributed according to any ease and/or based on how close each element is to a position in the list. For example, you can have things emanate outward from the "center" or a certain index. It'll even accommodate grids, complete with auto-calculated columns and rows (great for responsive layouts)! The interactive demo below explains it all visually (notice there's an embedded video explanation too): See the Pen Advanced Staggers in GSAP by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. So setting up an advanced stagger is as simple as: TweenMax.staggerTo(".yourClass", 2, { scale:0.1, y:40, stagger:{ amount: 2, //total seconds to divide up among staggers from: "center", //or an index value. Determines where staggers originate grid:"auto", //or [columns, rows] ease: Power1.easeIn //determines spacing } }); Parts of the advanced staggering features were prompted by suggestions from GSAP users inspired by Julian Garnier's API in anime, so we tip our hat to his efforts. He's a great contributor to the animation community. MorphSVG type:"rotational" There's an entirely new type of morph that leverages rotational and length data to move anchors and control points which can deliver cleaner, more intuitive morphs. Plus it completely eliminates kinks that can occasionally creep in with linear interpolation. The video below explains. Watch the video To tap into this new style of morphing, just set the type:"rotational" TweenMax.to("#shape1", 2, { morphSVG:{ shape:"#shape2", type:"rotational" } }); Or set it as the default to affect all morphs: MorphSVGPlugin.defaultType = "rotational"; //default is "linear" Demo 1: preventing kinks See the Pen MorphSVG type:'rotational' for preventing kinks by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Demo 2: more natural morphs See the Pen MorphSVG type:'rotational' for more natural morphs by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Fixing odd results by declaring a custom origin The default origin is 50% 50% which usually works great, but sometimes the rotations around that point look odd, as shown below. In cases like this, it's best to experiment and set your own custom origin to improve things even more. We created a findMorphOrigin() utility function which is in the codepen below (and you can copy it into your own) which allows you to simply feed in a start and end shape and then it'll superimpose an origin that you can drag around and see exactly how it affects the morph! In the demo below, go into the JS panel and un-comment the findMorphIndex() line and you'll see exactly how this works. Drag the origin around and watch how it affects things. See the Pen MorphSVG: fixing origin weirdness by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Note: you must load Draggable for this to work. So to set a custom origin, it would look like: TweenMax.to("#shape1", 2, { morphSVG:{ shape:"#shape2", type:"rotational", origin:"20% 60%" //or to define a different origin for the start and end shapes, "20% 60%,45% 30%" } }); Is the new type:"rotational" a silver bullet for making every morph perfectly intuitive? No, but it's a great option that delivers more natural morphs in many cases. MorphSVG canvas rendering SVG is fantastic, but sometimes developers have a canvas-based project (often for rendering performance reasons). They haven't been able to leverage the intuitive morphing that MorphSVG provides in a highly-performant way...until now. The new MorphSVG plugin allows you to define a render function that'll be called every time the path updates, and it will receive two parameters: rawPath [array]: A RawPath is essentially an array containing an array for each contiguous segment with alternating x, y, x, y cubic bezier data. It's like an SVG <path> where there's one segment (array) for each "M" command; that segment (array) contains all of the cubic bezier coordinates in alternating x/y format (just like SVG path data) in raw numeric form which is nice because that way you don't have to parse a long string and convert things. For example, this SVG <path> has two separate segments because there are two "M" commands: <path d="M0,0 C10,20,15,30,5,18 M0,100 C50,120,80,110,100,100" /> So the resulting RawPath would be: [ [0, 0, 10, 20, 15, 30, 5, 18], [0, 100, 50, 120, 80, 110, 100, 100] ] For simplicity, the example above only has one cubic bezier in each segment, but there could be an unlimited quantity inside each segment. No matter what path commands are in the original <path> data string (cubic, quadratic, arc, lines, whatever), the resulting RawPath will ALWAYS be cubic beziers. target [object]: the target of the tween (usually a <path>) This means you can even render morphs to super high-performance engines like PixiJS or anything that'll allow you to draw cubic beziers! Demo: MorphSVG canvas rendering See the Pen MorphSVG canvas rendering by GreenSock (@GreenSock) on CodePen. Here's an example of a tween and a render function that'd draw the morphing shape to canvas: var canvas = document.querySelector("canvas"), ctx = canvas.getContext("2d"), vw = canvas.width = window.innerWidth, vh = canvas.height = window.innerHeight; ctx.fillStyle = "#ccc"; TweenMax.to("#hippo", 2, { morphSVG:{ shape:"#circle", render:draw } }); function draw(rawPath, target) { var l, segment, j, i; ctx.clearRect(0, 0, vw, vh); ctx.beginPath(); for (j = 0; j To set a default render method for all tweens: MorphSVGPlugin.defaultRender = yourFunction; Got questions? If you haven't checked out the forums, you're missing out! It's a great place to get your questions answered and participate in the community. We carefully monitor and answer questions there. Changelog View the full changelog here (there's a lot). Happy tweening! DOWNLOAD GSAP NOW