GSAP & CO x CreateJS & CO

[radiator]

Hi All!

 

To get right to it... long time web dev, moving off of velocity as SVG animation needs become more important, and have been following the GSAP project for years, using it on several projects in the past. 

 

As my agency grows, I'm becoming more interested in going 'all in' on an animation toolset, instead of micro-library'ing for every unique situation that comes up. Before I drop the coin on GSAP Business, I have one last question / clarification.

 

How does GSAP compare/interact/is related to the CreateJS suite?

 

Grant Skinner is a household name, since way back when Flash sites where the jams.

 

I see the GSAP and CreateJS used in tandem, I see some on the interwebs comparing the two.  I dont see any direct linkage on either projects homepage but Its very likely i missed it.

 

Would love some clarification on GSAP x CreateJS, as a suite of tools.

 

Are they compliments to each other? Competitors? Good friends? 

 

Thank you for helping to clarify!

 

 

 

 

[OSUblake]

So GSAP is not a household name yet? It's no jQuery, but it's growing.

http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library/all

 

GSAP is a tweening library, so it's probably not a good idea to mix GSAP with TweenJS. Other than that, the two work great together. Check out the banner ad forum where people are using GSAP with the canvas exported by Flash, which uses CreateJS.

 

I think Jack and Carl have done work with Grant Skinner in the past, so they might be able to provide you with more info.

[radiator]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply!

 

GSAP is of course a household name! We use what a project needs, and we've used GSAP many times in the past.

 

I'm in the process of re-evaluating all of our tools for new projects in 2016, everything from adopting new build tools and package management to making sure all our css and js animation tools are tight for our needs. Consistency is important as our team grows.

 

For some transparency, VelocityJS has ben a good friend. So has snap svg, two.js  and jQuery of course but, using that less and less and less when it makes sense.

 

My primary confusion was, for whatever reason, I thought GSAP and CreateJS were somehow related, maybe in part by politics of teams going one way then the other, Grant Skinner, GS, GreenSock... my bad. 

 

OK, so two completely different enterprises.

 

Appreciate the response and links, thank you!

[GreenSock]

Great question. Blake is correct - CreateJS and GSAP work great together and they're often used that way. Of course CreateJS has their own "TweenJS" for basic tweens, but it's nowhere near as robust or flexible as GSAP. That's not to insult it at all - I'm pretty sure Grant was very intentional about keeping TweenJS simple and streamlined. 

 

At its heart, CreateJS is a canvas rendering engine. It's not really intended to be something that you'd load into your existing page and animate existing elements with (though you could with TweenJS and enough extra code).

 

GSAP, on the other hand, has nothing to do with rendering. It's meant to be a professional-grade animation suite that's like a Swiss Army knife in the animator's toolbox. Since it doesn't care how you build your stuff (canvas, DOM, ThreeJS, SVG, Angular, React, etc.), a lot of teams like it because they can learn one API for animation and use it everywhere.  It "just works". As I'm sure you know, it solves all sorts of browser bugs and inconsistencies (especially with transforms and SVG). And again, that's not really something CreateJS does because it's a canvas library (it doesn't have to worry about DOM and all its lovely quirks). 

 

Grant Skinner and I have chatted many times. Nice guy. Very smart of course. He and I collaborated a bit years back on the animation stuff. 

 

So no, I wouldn't say GSAP and CreateJS are competitors and I'm pretty sure Grant would agree. Sure, there's a little overlap where TweenJS lives, but that's about it. Grant would probably tell you that if you want to do advanced stuff (especially in the DOM), use GSAP. 

 

This might be worth reading (a summary of some of the things that make GSAP special): http://greensock.com/why-gsap/

 

What's great about CreateJS is how it integrates with Adobe Flash...er...[cough]...Adobe Animate CC. It's a great way to visually build stuff that ends up being rendered in a <canvas>. Plus I have the utmost respect for Grant and his team. 

 

Oh, and if you wanna do SVG morphing (which is all the hotness these days), nothing comes close to GSAP's MorphSVGPlugin http://greensock/morphSVG/

 

Let us know if you've got any other questions or concerns. Glad you took the time to ask. 

[Jonathan]

Hello radiator, here is a great GreenSock video tut by Carl showing how to use GSAP with the CreateJS/EaselJS code exported from Flash CC. Showing how he just writes the GSAP code straight in Flash CC.

 

Take it away Carl

 

 

And here is another link Carl made using CreateJS in Flash CC with GSAP

 

http://greensock.com/forums-support-files/createJS-demo.mp4

 

[radiator]

Thanks for all the responses, everyone!

 

Completely understand the differences now, and appreciate the clarification between GSAP and TweenJS. 

 

Excited to join Club Greensock and start playing around with all these shiny new toys you all have worked so hard on to make our development and artistic lives more enjoyable!