Why?
Aside from being a fun exercise, what purpose does something like this have? None that’s plainly obvious. Its about as useful as a miniature ship in a bottle. Yet it does have an underlying purpose. It could inspire someone to look beyond the perceived constraints of web designers and developers.
Overview
This project was created by layering several empty divs over each other with transparent PNGs as background images.
The backgrounds were animated at different speeds using a jQuery plug-in by Alexander Farkas. This effect simulates a faux 3-D animated background dubbed the “parallax effect” originating from old-school side scrolling video games.
The robot is comprised similarly to the background animation scene by layering several DIVs together to create the different robot pieces. The final step, was animating the robot with some jQuery.
The Markup
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="cloud-01">
<div id="cloud-02">
<div id="mountains-03">
<div id="ground">
<div id="full-robot">
<div id="branding"><h1>Robot Head.</h1></div>
<div id="content"><p> Robot Chest.</p></div>
<div id="sec-content"><p> Robot Pelvis.</p></div>
<div id="footer"><p> Robot Legs.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
The structure of the divs closely resembles our diagram. None of the DIVs has the width attribute specified so they will expand to fill the size of any browser window they are displayed on. NOTE: All the images that make the background scenery parallax effect are 9999px wide. Well beyond the width of any computer display or television in common use. We’ll use CSS to place the background images exactly where we want within each particular div.
The Style
The CSS for this project is just as simple as the markup.
h1, p { position: absolute; left: -9999px; }
div {position: relative;}
#wrapper { background: #bedfe4 url(../images/sun.png) no-repeat left -30px; border: 5px solid #402309;}
#cloud-01 { background: url(../images/clouds-01.png) no-repeat left -100px; }
#cloud-02 { background: url(../images/clouds-02.png) no-repeat left top; }
#mountains-03 { background: url(../images/mountain-03.png) no-repeat left bottom; }
#ground { background: url(../images/ground-05.png) no-repeat left bottom; }
#full-robot { width: 271px; }
#branding {
background: url(../images/robot-head.png) no-repeat center top;
width: 271px;
height: 253px;
z-index: 4;
}
#content {
background: url(../images/robot-torso.png) no-repeat center top;
width: 271px;
height: 164px;
z-index: 3;
margin-top: -65px;
}
#sec-content {
background: url(../images/robot-hips.png) no-repeat center top;
width: 271px;
height: 124px;
z-index: 2;
margin-top: -90px;
}
#footer {
background: url('../images/robot-legs.png') no-repeat center top;
width: 271px;
height: 244px;
z-index: 1;
margin-top: -90px;
}
Absolute positioning is used to pull any header or paragraph text 9999px to the left of the screen. Then we declare every DIV in the page position: relative. By making all the DIVs position: relative;, we now have the ability to the use the z-index property to reverse the natural stacking order of the robot DIVs.
The jQuery JavaScript
Disclaimer: The original script to animate the robot was horrid. The good folks at coding cyborg were kind enough to clean it up and re-write it.
$(document).ready(function(){
$('#cloud-01').css({backgroundPosition: '0 -80px'});
$('#cloud-02').css({backgroundPosition: '0 -30px'});
$('#mountains-03').css({backgroundPosition: '0 50px'});
$('#trees-04').css({backgroundPosition: '0 50px'});
$('#ground').css({backgroundPosition: 'left bottom'});
$('#branding').css({backgroundPosition: 'center 0'});
$('#content').css({backgroundPosition: 'center 0'});
$('#sec-content').css({backgroundPosition: 'center 0'});
$('#footer').css({backgroundPosition: 'center 0'});
$('#wrapper').css({overflow: "hidden"});
$('#klicker').click(function(){
$('#cloud-01').animate({backgroundPosition: '(-500px -80px)'}, 20000);
$('#cloud-02').animate({backgroundPosition: '(-625px -30px)'}, 20000);
$('#mountains-03').animate({backgroundPosition: '(-2500px 50px)'}, 20000);
$('#ground').animate({backgroundPosition: '(-5000px bottom)'}, 20000);
startHim();
$("#full-robot").animate({left:"50%",marginLeft:"-150px"}, 2000);
setTimeout("leaveScreen()",15000);
});
});
var num = 1;
function startHim(){
num++;
$("#sec-content").animate({top:"-=5px"},150).animate({top:"+=5px"},150);
$("#content,#branding").animate({top:"-="+num+"px"},150).animate({top:"+="+num+"px"},150);
if(num<4){
setTimeout("startHim()",300);
} else {
setTimeout("bounceHim()",300);
}
}
function bounceHim(){
$("#sec-content,#branding").animate({top:"-=4px"},150).animate({top:"+=4px"},150);
$("#content").animate({top:"-=8px"},150).animate({top:"+=8px"},150);
setTimeout("bounceHim()",300);
}
function leaveScreen(){
$("#full-robot").animate({left:"100%",marginLeft:"0px"}, 2000);
}
We begin by re-affirming the original background position of all the images.
Upon clicking the ‘#klicker’ div, a function tells jQuery to animate the backgrounds from their current position all the way to the coordinates specified for each div. By separating all the different image layers into different DIVs we can animate the background elements at different speeds. Moving the elements at different speeds gives an illusion of a 3rd dimension. We move the elements in the background at a much slower rate than the elements in the foreground. Notice on this animation that the speed of the clouds in the background is slower than the speed of the mountains. And the mountains are slower than the ground which is the fastest of all. Finally after firing off all these commands to get the background moving the ‘#klicker’ function calls on the ‘startHim()’ function.
The ‘startHim()’ function, you guessed it right, starts our robot. It begins his little bounce and gets him moving to the center of the #wrapper div. The ‘startHim()’ function calls on the ‘bounceHim()’ function. And then it keeps looping.
We need to make the robot seem like it was bouncing on a rough desert rode. To achieve that bouncy irregular effect we’ll use the ‘bounceHim()’ function. It targets the separate robot DIVs and ‘bounces’ them 5px up and then 5px down. That wont be enough though, all the different pieces of the robot bouncing at the same rate looks too stiff. We need to make it look a bit more random and interesting. So we’ll take the div that makes the chest portion of the robot and move it at a different rate than the head and pelvis pieces. We’ll ‘bounce’ the chest part at 8px up and 8px down. This gives the robot a nice off-beat bouncy effect.
The ‘leaveScreen()’ function is the last function called. After 15 seconds (15000) it moves the robot 100% percent to the left of the screen which consequently moves the robot off to the right of the screen.
Anthony Calzadilla is an independent web designer based out of Miami, FL. USA.
Note from Chris
I think this is an extremely cool experiment. I’d say for most users, the end result is indistinguishable from Flash. Yet, the advantages over Flash are enormous. Each piece of the animation is separate and can be altered/replaced easily. Tweaks to the animation style can be done with numbers within the JavaScript file itself as opposed to having to alter an original Flash document and re-export/upload an entire new version.
Really nicely done! I would recommend caching some of those selectors, but a really nice concept.
Wow, I agree… very nice! It's interesting to see how far we try to push web design sometimes. I like this a lot!!!
– Greg
This is very cool. I had NO idea that jQuery was able to do animations of that scale.
I have seen this before it is a very nice effect but way over my head
sick shit..
:::::::: i like this part :::::::::::;;; ({top:"+="+num+"px"} :::::::: cool
Hey men!
This is great my partners thought that this is Flash animation! :D
Great job!
Very cool! I love this type of jQuery stuff! Nice job!
Very cool! I love things that take functionality away from flash!
Very impressive that jquery that handle such "animation" tendencies. I kept right clicking waiting to see the Flash Player pop up, but nope! AMAZING!
Although it wasn’t really useful, it still is really, REALLY awesome to see something like this. This absolutely shows that the line between Flash & JavaScript / xHTML is fading: Well done and my compliments.
Not very semantic though ;).
hell yeah!
That sums it up perfectly. It’s absolutely annoying having to go back and rework animation.
Thanks for sharing!
Flash is the Bane of my existence… so this is quite welcomed haha
CHEERS
I don’t necessarily agree with this statement.
Using JavaScript animation is a great way to create interactive applications that degrade gracefully (i.e. you never see the “You need to upgrade to the latest version of Flash to see this content” message).
Using techniques like this means your information is still easily accessible by screen readers, search engines, and the like. And you still get sweet animation.
Simply put, mastering this technique is having your cake and eating it, too.
-Jason
Inspiring! This have given me a great idea for a very useful / educational “app”.
Thanks again.
nice tut thanks..
Great piece of lateral thinking, nice to see folks pushing boundaries
very cool~
Didn’t I see this exactly same thing before? I can swear that I did. Did you write this for another website and publish it before?
Very nice stuff, like it! But the bots midsection wont stay in its position, when i start the animation – i’m using Opera 9.6
i like it :) it’s so pretty
jQuery is a powerful library that continues to impress me…this is a very cool experiment and extremely useful for the non-flash folks out there.
Nicely done! Very similar to my own jQuery Paralax plugin
Great tutorial, but wouldn’t it be easier to do this in flash. I mean it might be more accessible but it seems an awful lot of effort for something so simple.
brilliant boundary pushing. inspirational. you rock my socks!
Very nice. Good job.
This is so web 1.0! Anybody on the cutting edge of design would know well enough to use an energy saving light bulb for the robot’s nose! jk =P
P-town represent! You should have made it a hipster robot.
I am totally impressed.. way to go developers! Way to go jQuery!
jQuery forever!!
Hi all, I’m glad you guys liked the tut. Big thanks to Chris for posting it here!
This is one of the most impressive things I have seen online for a while. I am quite new to jQuery and originated in flash. I have since left flash behind to create, user friendly, search engine friendly websites:www.punklogic.com It seems to me like there is a little javascript revolution going on behind the scenes? Do you think that it could replace flash?
Does it sound, does it scale ?
Never ever this will replace flash…why should it, btw ??
Since most of the functionality is on the client, I’d say it scales as well as any webage. As for replacing Flash, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you are not trolling. Flash is a binary, proprietary closed-source plugin with a limited number of working platforms, much fewer than HTML/Javascript. Replacing Flash with javascrpt/html/canvas/svg/smil is a very good thing.
Very impressive
Hi, all these JavaScript libraries are cool, I could see them replacing flash on the UI/Interface front one day… but not for animation. Especially Flash CS4, its like a mini AfterEffects for vectors.
Very nice tutorial. I always planned to add some little animation my website, but didn’t feel like going the Flash way. Now I see I don’t have to.
This is something different.. and It is one of the most impressive things I have seen so far …
hm… test in Opera please…
Very cool, will I every need this?