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Five years of GSAP = motiontricks.com

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Hey fellow GreenSockers :)


A little over five years ago, I took a chance and posted a question on the GreenSock forum. Nobody called me dumb and that was a HUGE relief! So much so that I wrote an entire GS post about it four years ago. It was a turning point for me and my JavaScript journey.

 

Today, I’m taking another big leap in my life and launching a web animation tutorial site. My reasons for doing so are both personal and professional. This thread is a sequel to my One Year post listed above. Call it My Five Year Journey.


Personal reasons
My life has been full of twists, turns and milestone events over the past few years. I turned the big 50 and ask myself every day how that’s even possible.

 

The memories of getting my first computer (TRS-80) and learning BASIC in the early 80s are so vivid that they feel like it was only a few years ago. Wasn’t it just yesterday I was programming the PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 in high school? Time does fly and I’m not getting any younger.

 

I also celebrated my 30th wedding anniversary. That event itself isn’t a reason to start a new website, but the longer I’m married, the more I realize how lucky I am to have a partner and cheerleader with me when I try new things. She has been a tremendous support in this new endeavor. I wonder how I ever talked her into marrying me all those years ago and how she has put up with me for 30+ years.

 

The other recent personal event that has shaped my decision is the one that is affecting us all right now. Seeing the effect of COVID-19 on the world and how it has robbed too many people of their lives and livelihoods has reminded me that time is precious, and you never know what’s around the corner. As they say, seize the day.

 

Professional reasons
After taking the leap and posting that first question on the forum, I was hooked on the GreenSock community. I’ve tried to help as many people as I could in my free time. I love seeing someone have that ‘ah-ha’ moment. This new site is an extension of that desire to help and teach.

 

This will be a difficult challenge. It would be far easier to not do this. As a lifelong introvert, I’m far more comfortable in my dark office typing away on the keyboard so this definitely pushes me out of my comfort zone. It will also be a time management challenge to keep posting new content while taking care of clients and still helping on the forum. I’ll do my best.

 

My final professional reason is that this just seems like the universe is pushing me in this direction. I loved computers and programming in my youth, but my career turned to my other loves of video production and photography. Throughout the last decade there have been many forks in the road, and it seems like every decision has led me here.  My life has now come full circle. 

 

Fear and self-doubt
Despite all the personal and professional reasons listed above, there has still been the nagging self-doubt. Will it be any good? Will anyone read it? Hasn’t this already been written?

 

Maybe others don’t have that little voice in the back of their head, but mine starts yelling at me loudly when I try something big. It’s one thing to post an answer in the forum, but quite another to really put yourself out there with a whole new site.

 

After some sleepless nights, I finally found calm from one realization. If I can help even one person with a problem, teach them something new or spark an idea, it will all be worth it. The rest of the fears don’t matter. Life is just too short to be scared or worried.

 

The website’s focus
If you know me from the GS forum, you know I love SVGs and making them move with GSAP. The website will, of course, feature a lot of SVGs and GreenSock will power everything. 

 

However, my primary focus will be real world projects. I find that I learn best when I’m building an actual project, so I’ll try to keep that as the focus. I’ll have lots of little tips and quick things too, but projects will be the main thing.

 

Frequent visitors to the forum also know I don’t take it all too seriously and joke around a lot. You’ll be happy to know that several of the tutorials feature terrible jokes and puns at no extra charge.

 

Thanks to the GS gang
I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again. Thank you to Jack( @GreenSock)  for creating the tools, but more importantly, thanks for fostering a terrific online community. Had I not discovered GSAP and started hanging around here, I would not know much about JavaScript and the new site would not exist.

 

Special shout-out to @Carl too. He’s already in the trenches with training and tutorials and has encouraged me the whole way as I was getting this thing launched.

 

All my fellow mods — thanks for the help and comradery over the years. You are all awesome! 

 

motiontricks.com
Finally, without further ado, I introduce you to motiontricks.com

 

6kl9Uxq.png

 

My best to all of you. Thanks for reading. Now, let’s get those pixels movin’! 🚀

 

-Craig (PointC)

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Congrats on your new journey, can't wait to take part in it!

 

Your "first year of gsap" post moved me so much...  and your work inspires me on a regular basis. I don't even know how to express my gratitude for you sharing all this with us. What a fitting way for you now to spread your passion on to the future.👏

 

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16 hours ago, PointC said:

Special shout-out to @Carl too. He’s already in the trenches with training and tutorials and has encouraged me the whole way as I was getting this thing launched.

 

By encourage I think he meant "incessantly bugged me for 2 years" :) Now, that Craig got his blog up, I'll move on to @OSUblake The world needs a GSAP + Pixi hero.

 

Great job, Craig. I'm truly impressed. I can't wait to finish reading all of it. I'm sure motiontricks.com will be a tremendous resource for anyone learning and mastering GSAP. I'll whole-heartedly recommend it. 

 

When's the next post going live?

 

:)

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Carl said:

By encourage I think he meant "incessantly bugged me for 2 years"

Well yeah. I just didn't want to be rude.

 

6 minutes ago, Carl said:

When's the next post going live?

I have to write more????? 👀

 

I'm unofficially planning for 'New Tutorial Tuesdays'. Should fit nicely with taco Tuesday. 🌮

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@Carl let's give Blake 12 months and if he doesn't get it done, we'll collaborate on a new site and take all the fortune and glory for ourselves. I should probably register the domain before someone else grabs it.

 

snorklmotionpixicodingcreativetricksclubbecauseblakedidntwanttodoit.com

 

 

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Congrats PointC, it looks really nice and will be a wonderful resource. Nice job!

 

Good luck on CSSTricks buying you out when CSS still won’t be able to do all that GSAP can do by the year 3052. But in the meantime you may wish to decrease the timeScale() on that finger spinning laptop, its set so high it almost appears stationary. 😜

 

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Thank you to all the GS community members who gave me a retweet of the Motion Tricks launch tweet. It was much appreciated. :)

 

It was a successful launch with well over 1,000 unique visitors in the first 48-72 hours. I'm seeing repeat traffic already too so I'm encouraged and excited to keep going. Probably nothing new next week as I'm taking a quick staycation before getting back to my list of tutorials and client work.

 

Thanks again everyone.

:)

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

I'm sooo captivated by the header of your website. It's such a cool animation how it's all moving and it collects when hovering over a nav-link.

Do you have a tutorial on how it's done?

I just started programming and I hope i will, someday, be able to do 1/10 of what you can do.

Such a big inspiration!

 

(Sorry for the bad English)

 

Greetz,

 

Gentian

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Thanks so much  @leGenti and welcome to the forum. :)

 

I've received several requests for a tutorial about the particles in my site header so yes - that one is definitely in the queue. Motion Tricks is currently making the transition into offering video courses so things are a bit quiet on the blog right now. Once the first courses are ready, the plan is to keep the blog to shorter articles and use video for the deeper dives into subjects. I think the particle tutorial will most likely be a free mini video course.

 

To keep up to date with my upcoming courses, you can follow me on Twitter. 

https://twitter.com/Craig_PointC

 

I will have some more info coming soon and an email signup for early access to the courses.

 

Best of luck on your learning journey. Just try to learn a little each day and pretty soon things will just start 'clicking' for you.

 

Happy tweening.

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