web transitions

Hi all,

 

Take a look at http://cs.sru.edu/~ddailey/fading/slides/transitions.html 

 

I'm trying to start an open source collection of web-transition effects:
allowing the gradual fade-in of one image and fade out of another.  These
things probably exist somewhere else (I've seen simple ones done in places
like MSFT Powerpoint, and more complex ones done on TV), but have never
really looked into the underlying technologies.

 

The above things are all done using SVG and SMIL --  hence they are not, at
present for IE - though I haven't had a chance to see if David Leunen's
FakeSMILe  (http://leunen.me/fakesmile/)might resurrect them for the IE
folks.  A couple of the things involving chained filter effects are pretty
browser intensive, but most are pretty straightforward. As you can see,
there are a variety of effects involving animated gradients, masks,
patterns,  filters, interpolated Bezier curves - pretty much the whole SVG
arsenal. However the saving advantage is that the source code in each is
pretty short. These 30 plus examples were hammered out in about a week
(while also working a day job).

 

The point that I think these examples make is that there are a myriad of
different ways of doing screen transitions involving tessellations,
translations, interpolations and the like, and none of these has even used
<canvas> to muck with pixel values. In fact none of these has any JavaScript
at all meaning that the 99.9% of the world that doesn't program could, in
theory, make such things, while, unfortunately 95% of the 0.1 percent who
do, will claim that SMIL is too hard for them to think about. Unfortunately
that 95% of the 0.1 percent controls standards development ;) 

 

Anyhow, get in touch if either a) you have suggestions about where to house
such things and to foster collaboration b) you have an idea of a metagrammar
for all transitions (some of which may involve stacks of remembered images
that are interwoven in the transition chain) c) you'd like to add a
transition or two to the list d) you know of ways to make this project
thoroughly obsolete (since it's already been done) e) you know of easy ways
to make these transitions apply to video, and web pages, as well as simple
images f) you'd be willing to work on finding a proper open source license
for these software-esque things.

 

Cheers

David

(P.S. This project may tie in with another one that I've been conspiring
with some others about and about which you may hear more in the near future)