Today we’d like to share some tiny hover effect ideas with you. The concept stems from the hover effect seen on Merci-Michel which has a really nice feel to it because of its fluidity. The idea is to show a stack behind the hovered thumbnail that has the same main color as the image and then animate the elements in a swift motion. We are using the JavaScript library anime.js for the animations.

Attention: Modern CSS properties at work, so modern browsers only.

Stack Motion Effect Markup & Styles

The markup for the items is as follows:

<div class="grid grid--effect-vega"> <a href="#" class="grid__item grid__item--c1"> <div class="stack"> <div class="stack__deco"></div> <div class="stack__deco"></div> <div class="stack__deco"></div> <div class="stack__deco"></div> <div class="stack__figure"> <img class="stack__img" src="img/1.png" alt="Image"/> </div> </div> <div class="grid__item-caption"> <h3 class="grid__item-title">anaerobic</h3> <div class="column column--left"> <span class="column__text">Period</span> <span class="column__text">Subjects</span> <span class="column__text">Result</span> </div> <div class="column column--right"> <span class="column__text">2045</span> <span class="column__text">133456</span> <span class="column__text">Positive</span> </div> </div> </a> <a href="#" class="grid__item grid__item--c2"><!-- ... --></a> <a href="#" class="grid__item grid__item--c2"><!-- ... --></a> </div><!-- /grid -->

We use a specific class for the grid to create individual effects. The four stack__deco divisions are the decorative elements that we animate along with the stack__figure and the image. The grid itself is the container that has perspective. The grid caption has a title and two columns that optionally get animated, too.

For the grid we use a flexbox layout (see demo.css). For the decorative cards of the stack and the figure with its image will have the following styles:

.stack { position: relative; width: 100%; height: 200px; transform-style: preserve-3d; } .stack__deco { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; background-color: currentColor; transform-origin: 50% 100%; } .stack__deco:first-child { opacity: 0.2; } .stack__deco:nth-child(2) { opacity: 0.4; } .stack__deco:nth-child(3) { opacity: 0.6; } .stack__deco:nth-child(4) { opacity: 0.8; } .stack__figure { position: relative; display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; overflow: hidden; width: 100%; height: 100%; cursor: pointer; transform-origin: 50% 100%; } .stack__img { position: relative; display: block; flex: none; }

For some effects we want some special styles:

/* Individual effects */ /* Vega */ .grid--effect-vega .column { opacity: 1; } /* deneb */ .grid--effect-deneb { perspective: none; } .grid--effect-deneb .stack__figure, .grid--effect-deneb .stack__deco { transform-origin: 50% 50%; } .grid--effect-deneb .column { opacity: 1; } /* ... */

And here is an example for an effect animation (hovering in and out):

HamalFx.prototype._in = function() { var self = this; this.DOM.stackItems.map(function(e, i) { e.style.opacity = i !== self.totalItems - 1 ? 0.2*i+0.2 : 1 }); anime({ targets: this.DOM.stackItems, duration: 1000, easing: 'easeOutExpo', translateY: function(target, index) { return -1*index*5; }, rotate: function(target, index, cnt) { if( index === cnt - 1 ) { return 0; } else { return index%2 ? (cnt-index)*1 : -1*(cnt-index)*1; } }, scale: function(target, index, cnt) { if( index === cnt - 1 ) { return 1; } else { return 1.05; } }, delay: function(target, index, cnt) { return (cnt-index-1)*30 } }); anime({ targets: this.DOM.img, duration: 1000, easing: 'easeOutExpo', scale: 0.7 }); anime({ targets: [this.DOM.columns.left, this.DOM.columns.right], duration: 1000, easing: 'easeOutExpo', translateX: function(target, index) { return index === 0 ? -30 : 30; } }); }; HamalFx.prototype._out = function() { var self = this; anime({ targets: this.DOM.stackItems, duration: 500, easing: 'easeOutExpo', translateY: 0, rotate: 0, scale: 1, opacity: function(target, index, cnt) { return index !== cnt - 1 ? 0 : 1 } }); anime({ targets: this.DOM.img, duration: 1000, easing: 'easeOutElastic', scale: 1 }); anime({ targets: [this.DOM.columns.left, this.DOM.columns.right], duration: 500, easing: 'easeOutExpo', translateX: 0 }); };

We hope you like these hover effects and find them inspirational!

References and Credits