Text with Moving Backgrounds with jQuery
Personally, I am a huge fan of negative space in design. This got me thinking while I was trying to accomplish something different. Normally a textual caption would be positioned above a background, but I wanted to do it the other way around: place the background in the letters.
I also wanted to add some nice dynamic effects to enhance the effect. This was amazingly easy to accomplish in jQuery with the use of a little creativity.
This article will explain what you need to do create an effect like this yourself.
What are we going to do?
We are going to create a container which has a moving background, but only a set of letters will be visible of the background. It will be as if there are holes in your container.
To do this we need just a few things:
- A nice background pattern or image
- Letters punched out of an image
- Just a little jQuery code
Normally you would create a PNG file containing anti-aliased letters and place it inside some container on top of a background. What we are going to do is place a full image over a background, covering parts that shouldn’t be seen. Just like a mask!
Then we’re going to make the background of the container move around to create a nice looking effect.
Step 1: Creating the “mask”
To create the overlaying mask I am going to use Photoshop. You can do this with any other image manipulation application, but I am going to explain what I did using screenshots of Photoshop.
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First create a new image and fill the background with the foreground of the mask.
This is the part that will be visible for the users. I used a black solid fill for this, so it stays clean.
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Create a new text layer on the fill you just made.
This gives us the right impression, and we just have to imagine that the white letters will be punched out later. -
Hold CMD / CTRL and click on the text layer icon
Doing this the text will get a selection around it which should look like this:
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Click: Select > Inverse
Now the area that will be visible on the mask image is selected. It will look like this:
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Select the fill layer and click on “Add mask”
This will create a mask for the fill and the letters have been punched out. -
Hide the text layer
You have now punched out the letters of the fill! -
Save as .png!
PNG handles transparency very well and looks right in almost all current browsers (nope, not IE6). It also support opacity per pixel, so it’s not like the the GIF transparency.
Step 2: A little documenting and styling
Now that you’ve got your own mask image, it’s time to create the HTML page for it to end up in.
Just for basics, use something like this:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="nl" lang="nl"> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Some title</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <div class='scrollBg'> <img src='overlay.png' alt='' /> </div> </body> </html>
We created a simple HTML page containing just two elements; the container “scrollBg” and the image that serves as the mask.
Make sure to fix the src of the image and the href to your stylesheet.
In the stylesheet we just need a little bit of styling:
body {
background-color: #000000;
}
.scrollBg {
background-image: url(background.jpg);
background-color: #000000;
width: 487px;
height: 83px;
}
.scrollBg img {
display: block;
}
You’ll have to fix the width and height of the scrollBg container. Adjust it to the width and height of the mask you created. This will prevent the background image from showing outside of the mask.
Also change the URL of the background image.
Step 3: Go jQuery crazy!
In the Javascript part of this tutorial we are going to make the background image shift in position at random.
To make jQuery able to move the background image, we need a plugin, since it’s not in the default behavior.
Go download this plugin: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/backgroundPosition-Effect
Include this script in on your page using:
<script type="text/javascript" src="url_to_moving_background.js"></script>
Now we can use backgroundPosition as a parameter in the jQuery animate effect! Pretty neat!
The following jQuery code will move the background around at random (put it in the <head> part of the HTML page):
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
moveBgAround();
});
function moveBgAround() {
//give a random value from 0 to 400 for the X axis and the Y axis
var x = Math.floor(Math.random()*401);
var y = Math.floor(Math.random()*401);
//random generated time it takes to move
var time = Math.floor(Math.random()*1001) + 2000;
//make the background image move!
$('.scrollBg').animate({
backgroundPosition: '(' + (x * -1) + 'px ' + (y * -1) + 'px)'
}, time, "swing", function() {
moveBgAround();
});
}
</script>
It’s that simple! You are now ready to experiment with the code I just created.
The X and Y values are the amount of pixels the background image will shift. He will not move that amount in pixel, but he will move to the generated coordinates.
If you would like to make it move more you can increase the number stated here:
var x = Math.floor(Math.random()*401);
If you want to create a background image that is not a pattern but rather just a large texture, you have to an image with the following width and height: Take the number that you entered in the script (amount after random()) and add the width of the mask to it: that is your width. Same goes with the height.
This will allow the background to move around without being repeated.
Done!
If you have any questions or was inspirited to create different crazy effects: let me know in the comments below.
Happy developing!
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64 Comments
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Pretty cool! Now to make a version where you can select the text etc., and you would be all ready to implement it :) . But I’m not really sure how userfriendly it would be :P .
Anyway, nice POC and keep up the great work!
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Cool idea,
I can really see this looking awesome on a 60s psychedelic style site for headings and banners.
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Nice tut but needs a rotate option
My quick test w/ your tutorial – http://drawne.com/lava/bgtext/
http://designbump.com/Javascript/Text_with_Moving_Backgrounds_with_jQuery
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very nice, as usual…
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This is amazing. Could be very usefull to alot of designers
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Very cool. Thanks for sharing this!
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@Marco: Thanks buddy! It’s more an effect for headers and small animated elements, but selecting the text would be cool!
@Devolved: Exactly ;) I should try that out haha.
@Andy: I don’t know if rotating would be posible, could be with CSS3, but that’s not a standard yet :(
Cool example buddy! I really like it.@Moabi, JayQuery and Chuck: My pleasure :)
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Wow. Really cool tutorial. I don’t know what I’m going to use it for yet, but it looks awesome.
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That effect is ridiculously good looking! Should use that on something some time soon. Nice and light and the result is pixel-perfect!
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Really neat stuff Gaya. Not sure when I would use this, but neat nonetheless. Added to the Dev-Tips communtiy feed :-)
-Drew
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@Travis: Thanks :)
@Sieb: Thanks buddy! I am sure we’ll get this going in some sort of cool way
@Drew: Thanks for adding this to your feed! I am glad you liked it
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amazing effect, very cool idea!
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I was a bit bummed to see the text was an image. Next step is to figure out how to accomplish this with normal text. None the less a good end result.
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*applause* You did it again. Very useful, very cool. Thanks for sharing bro.
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Man, this is awesome! I can already see a lot of uses for this, including interactivity. Like if it moved depending on the X and Y position of your mouse pointer. Nice job!
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Awesome effect, great job
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This is brilliant, I love it.
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You are def a JQuery-Zen-Master, all of your scripts are awesome ! I so enjoyed this one though- I couldnt stop staring at it :D this is great for a hypnotic effect ! :D This site will def be my new playground :)
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Oh~! It’s a good job! thanks.
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Man, this is amazing.. i love it !
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Neat! This article prompted me to try it with a css3 SVG image mask. Here’s my (Safari Only) demo:
http://dainkennison.com/txtmask/
Thanks!
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Really a great tutorial :)
Thanks
Mehedi Hasan
Web Designer & Developer
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Hi, nice tutorial, I will definitaley use this, but would it be possible, that the background only appears if you mouseover the object? Would be amazing for navigations…
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Maybe delete/ignore previous post, please…
Nice. I also like Jay Hollywood’s jQ… http://google.com/?q=Hollywood jQuery
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hi mr kessler
my name is nicolas koller (switzerland) and i’m a typographic artist. i like the style of your website especially your arts programming. I’m just wondering what kind of CMS do you use?
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Thanks for all the comments!
@nic: I use WordPress :)
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Sorry, I didn’t like this. I came here super-impressed to hear of “text” with a moving background. I was expecting some CSS3 stuff I’d never heard of… instead I saw an image with a moving background, not text.
It’s a cool effect, but nothing mind blowing.
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Nice effect, but like Ben said image masks are nothing mind blowing.
It would be AWESOME to see this working with sIFR (http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr) so you could change the text dynamically. That would also solve the text-highlighting issue. Some food for thought ;)
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Very cool! I am starting to become a jQuery addict. Your layout looks pretty sweet as well..
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Pretty interesting effect to say the least. jQuery is so fun, isn’t it.
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awesome…like this web name, awesome too
in my country GAYA is STYLE in english
full gaya :D
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awwesom man…its super cool…………..i m in lov with it….
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Nice…
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i dont see any CMD key on my pc. where is it located? i dont use MAC.. :)
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Mmm, this is pretty tasty!
I think a cool effect could be achieved with a texture that is continuously rushing by either completely horizontal or vertical. Like if there was a floor mask that had square windows cut out of the bottom and water was constantly rushing by.
I definitely love your application of it though. It definitely opened my mind a little bit as to what jQuery can do. Thanks :)
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whoaaaa… this is awesome!
thank you very much for sharing the scripts ^^!
much appreciated
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Nice presents,good works,Thx
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really nice!!!
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Great stuff, thx for sharing.
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How Smart work so great post..
thanks
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great!
yumo99.com
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Hi Gaya,
I have read your last comment on setting a different BG, i ve been trying to add a masked image of 543 width and 400 height but it only moves once and then it stops.
Could you tell me the measures the BG needs to have ?
Thx
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hi, its really nice jquery effect … never thinking about it before :)
thanks
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hey you need to really have backgrounds not just a link ok
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Its really cool features of jquery .I am also lover of designing and as well as navigation effect with jquery.
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I really liked your feature of jquery, well done. I am a beginner with wordpress, how can you insert the code in the wordpress; i.e in header.php and style.css. I am trying to do a moving background but is not working. Guess i am stuck in what to put in header and style. Feedback would be much appreciated
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super, cool and awesome article. Thanks for share with us!
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whoaaaa… this is awesome!
thank you very much for sharing the scripts ^^!
much appreciated
i also want this on my website
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on second thought, it turns out they’re good for background too :D
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I love to try your awesome work( moving backgrounds), which was posted by posted on: January 8, 2010.
However, I couldn’t figure it out how I could plug in the number of the width and height.
I have a background image as a texture (width 384px and height 272px).Could you help me please!
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Almost all of what you mention happens to be supprisingly accurate and it makes me wonder the reason why I had not looked at this with this light before. Your article really did turn the light on for me as far as this particular topic goes. Nevertheless there is one factor I am not really too cozy with and while I try to reconcile that with the actual central idea of the position, allow me observe just what all the rest of the visitors have to say.Well done.
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Nice effect – anyone know how to get this to work with jquery 1.6.1?
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Hey great posting , Thank you for sharing this info
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Fine write-up! I’m also going to create a blog post relating to this… thanks a lot
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I have implemented this on my blog at http://www.stylifyyourblog.com/. It was working fine but suddenly stopped working on the Home Page but works on the post page and other pages. Please Help
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I used this on my website http://www.browseranalysis.com/ for my main logo. Looks much better than what I was going to use. Thanks
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Nice examples. I don’t want to sound like a stuck in the mud but I hope this will be used wisely on the internet.
Just imagine the old html 3 pub poster looking sites with moving text in the background! As with all design concepts it can be used very well and enhance the user experience or be used extremely badly and put viewers off the content.
If the movement could be user controlled or constrained to not loop then I think the user experience would be better.
However on the other hand I can see this being a great addition to a children site or a html 5 game.
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Add a google + button to your site so i can read this later
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awesome! nice effect, btw how can i get background.js ?, cause i can’t download @ http://plugins.jquery.com/project/backgroundPosition-Effect.
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Thanks for a great tutorial here – I’d really like to try this… the only problem is that that as zul says above, the link to the plugin is no good (the site is down) – do you have a copy of the file?
Thanks :)
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