🛠 Modal: Wave hand animation with JavaScript (using GSAP)

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🛠 Modal: Wave hand animation with JavaScript (using GSAP)

We have already completed the modal animation with CSS, but I still want to show you how to use GSAP to animate the waving hand. This will help you learn to use GSAP in a real project.

Since we are going to create the waving hand animation with GSAP, you need to remove (or comment) the animation from the CSS.

/* Remove these parts */
@keyframes zoom {
  /* ... */
}

@keyframes wave {
  /* ... */
}

.modal-is-open .wave-hand {
  /* ... */
}

First, we need to add GSAP to the project:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/1.20.3/TweenMax.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/main.js"></script>

Next, we need to select the waving hand with JavaScript.

const wavingHand = document.querySelector('.wave-hand')

We want the hand to have an animation when the modal opens. Here, we can create a wave function that tells the hand to wave. We only use wave when we open the modal.

// Wave hand animation here
const wave =_ => {
  // ...
}

// Opens modal
modalButton.addEventListener('click', event => {
  document.body.classList.add('modal-is-open')
  wave()
})

Creating the animation

Our waving hand animation contains many parts:

1. The zoom
2. Wave left (your right)
3. Wave right (your left)
4. Wave left
5. Wave right
6. Back to middle

Since the animation contains many parts, we want to use TimelineMax. With TimelineMax, we can chain many tweens together easily.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
}

Creating the zoom animation

Here’s how we created the zoom animation with CSS Animations:

@keyframes zoom {
  0% {
    transform: scale(0.25);
    opacity: 0;
  }

  100% {
    transform: scale(1);
    opacity: 1;
  }
}

.wave-hand {
  animation: zoom 0.5s cubic-bezier(0.18, 0.89, 0.32, 1.28);
}

We changed two things during the animation:

1. scale from 0.25 to 1
2. opacity from 0 to 1

If we don’t write any code, we know .wave-hand already has a scale of 1 and an opacity of 1. If we want to create the animation, we want to animate from scale 0.25 and opacity 0.

We can create a from animation with the from method.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {
    scale: 0.25,
    opacity: 0,
  })
}

We used a “backward” cubic bezier timing-function for the animation. In GSAP, the “backward” cubic-bezier equivalent is Back.easeOut.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {
    scale: 0.25,
    opacity: 0,
    ease: Back.easeOut.config(1.5)
  })
}

Note: The red squiggly underlines beneath TimelineMax and Back are because Standard (the linter) doesn’t recognize them as variables. See the linter lesson on how to remove these underlines.

Creating the wave animation

Here’s the wave CSS Animation.

@keyframes wave {
  0% { transform: rotate(0); }
  20% { transform: rotate(15deg); }
  40% { transform: rotate(-15deg); }
  60% { transform: rotate(15deg); }
  80% { transform: rotate(-15deg); }
  100% { transform: rotate(0); }
}

When you use GSAP, you don’t care about the points (at 20%, at 40%, etc). You care about what happens between these points. You also care about the amount of time between the points.

From 0% to 20%, you want the hand to rotate to your right. Here, you use the to method. The duration of this movement is 0.2 seconds.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {
    scale: 0.25,
    opacity: 0,
    ease: Back.easeOut.config(1.5)
  })
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, { rotation: 15 })
}

From 20% to 40%, we want the hand to rotate to the left. It should end up at a -15deg rotation; we can continue chaining the wave animation with to.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {scale: 0.25, opacity: 0, ease: Back.easeOut.config(1.5)})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: -15})
}

Then to the right, and left, and back to 0.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {scale: 0.25, opacity: 0, ease: Back.easeOut.config(1.5)})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: -15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: -15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 0})
}

Finally, we need to set transform-origin to make sure our hand rotates from the bottom center. Here, we use the set method.

const wave = _ => {
  const tl = new TimelineMax({})
  // Sets transform origin
  tl.set(wavingHand, {transformOrigin: 'bottom center'})
  tl.from(wavingHand, 0.5, {scale: 0.25, opacity: 0, ease: Back.easeOut.config(1.5)})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: -15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: -15})
  tl.to(wavingHand, 0.2, {rotation: 0})
}

That’s it! Bye bye!