Since the introduction of CSS3, there are really a lot of hot debates revolve around its possibilities and usability. However, there are also a lot of interesting experiments hand-crafted to explore its potential. Though the experiments by any mean do not prove the CSS3′s usability, they really showed the true possibilities of CSS3, to a degree that major developers believe the CSS3 is the future.

Is that true? Judge it with your eyes. In this showcase we are gonna show nothing but just 38 inspiring CSS3-based animation demos that purely discover the true potential of the CSS3. Besides the pure experiments, you will also see some practical examples of how CSS3 can be applied into web design to make it sweeter and sexier.

Enough said, let us explore the fantastic world of CSS3!

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• Building HTML5/CSS3 Webpages
• Graceful Breadcrumb Navigation Menu in CSS3
• Create An Ajax-Based HTML5/CSS3 Contact Form
• 35 Graphics Built Purely With CSS3
• more..

You are strongly recommended to view these demos using the latest version of Safari or Developer version of Google Chrome. Most demos support the latest version of Firefox and Google Chrome, though.

Animated 3D Helix

First one in the list is an incredible animation made by Marcofolio.net, using CSS3 3D transforms. The animation looks like magic itself, but you can actually learn to create the similar effect with the tutorial in the article!

Animated Buttons

A must-see for web designer, as the demo not only shows the possibilities of CSS3 animation, but also provides very cool and practical button effects for inspiration!

Animation Menus

Trying to spice up your animation menus to make them look really cool and creative? This demo is for you.

AT-AT Walker

An inspiring animation demo showing the potential of CSS3 on animating an unit with body parts.

Battlefield CSS3

Battlefield CSS3 with lots of explosions and gunshots!

Big Deal

It’s the smooth and nice animation that made this demo a big deal.

Can Haz Ur Cursor?

“Hi, I’m the Cursor Monster. My papa has a message for you: ‘Please, don’t use cursor:none, except if you create a cursor eating monster’.”

CSS Dock

A sexy experiment mimicking the Mac OS X’s dock, and it’s really smooth.

CSS3 Man

Look out, here comes the CSS3 man! Perfect example to showcase the true potential of CSS3 animation.

Dribbble Ball Bouncing

With the little use of graphic tricks comes a nice and amusing CSS3 animation.

Dulla

Dulla pretty much shows one of the most common techniques used to create 2D platformer game, which is now also possible with CSS3.

Frame by Frame Animation

Frame by frame animation with CSS3? No problem!

Graph Animation

A simple but powerful animation for you to show/explain the graph in your site, learn to make it!

High

A mysterious music animation which displays images from Google Search dynamically in real-time, and the displaying images are based on the song lyrics.

Hover Effects

The future of the hover effect comes with CSS3. Sleek and promising.

I Am Joseph Barrett

CSS3 integrated into the social media icons of the portfolio site. It’s not only fun but also showing the creativity of the designer.

Infinite Zoom

Smooth animation, also a nice way to show off your portfolio. The total zoom for the 26 images is 67108864:1.

Kinect and CSS3

“14 body joints are tracked and converted into a short CSS animation using Xbox Kinect. The body data is brought into the browser where is parsed and converted into CSS animations with animatable.com.”

Matrix

Want to be as cool as Matrix? With the CSS3 you’re able to make it.

Morphing Cubes

Experimental demo exploring the CSS3 using 3D transforms, animations and transitions. The interesting part here is you can still select the text on the elements, even when they are still rotating.

Our Solar System

You don’t need expensive standalone software to help students explore solar system anymore.

Duff Roll

“Mmmmmm….Homer would love the never ending supply of beer.”

Poster Circle

A simple yet interesting example on showing you how to use CSS transformation and animation to achieve interesting effect.

Reverend Danger

Who can resist a website with really cute characters and amusing animations?

Rofox

Seamless and fun animation, get the source code to try on your own!

Shaun The Sheep

“Watch Shaun and his friends’ antics in clips from ‘An Ill Wind’, ‘Snowed In’, ‘The Big Chase’, and ‘Twos Company’ through an interactive experiment created with hardware-accelerated HTML5 video, 3D CSS Transforms, and WebM.”

Space

Perhaps space is the final limit for CSS3.

Space CaCSS

Create magical effect like this isn’t really hard with CSS3, as there are mainly just repeating-radial-gradient and background-size involved. Variations are possible with reasonable amount of tweaks.

Star Wars Crawl

Star Wars opening’s crawl effect! Just as epic as CSS3.

The Expressive Web

The expressive web not only introduces you about the CSS3 and its browser support, reference and documentation, but also showcasing a mind-blowing CSS3 animation on its web page.

The Letter-Heads

Using types to create a shadow that looks like human’s face, who would have thought it would be possible with CSS3?

The Man From Hollywood

Ever saw those attractive animations using just pure typography? Well, you can do it with CSS3 too.

The Planetarium

Simply epic demo on exploring the planetarium with details. SVG, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, fonts and types are involved.

Type Rains

“The forecast for today, assuming you’re using a modern browser, is cloudy, with a 100% chance of Georgia showers.”

Typography Effects

Besides button, menu and hover effects, you can also achieve creative typography effects with CSS3. jQuery is also involved in this demo to style the letters of the words.

Walking With Andrew Hoyer

Best of all, you can also learn to walk with Andrew Hoyer in the article!

Wonder Webkit

A wonderful use of CSS3 3D transformations with JavaScript Matrix library. Sounds technical, but the outcome is rockingly cool.

Zoetrope

What else you can’t do with CSS3 when Zoetrope is possible with it?

Reflection

Inspiring? Yes. Practical? Perhaps. Animation technique is always a head-scratching subject for developer and animator as it requires certain level of knowledge to produce really smooth, unique and stylish animation. While CSS3 has the possibility to do the animation, it doesn’t mean that it’s a suitable tool for animation. I think eventually it’s still about your preference, as for me, I’m okay with both, as long as the tool suits the project’s needs.

What’s your thought about these CSS3 animations? Are these CSS3 animations only good as experiments, or they can also be applied into the real-life web design? As usual, we welcome your precious thought on the topic, and do let us know your favorite piece of CSS3 animation as well!

More

Just showcase, really? You deserved to get more! Below are the tutorials and guides of CSS3 from Hongkiat to you, have a nice time exploring them!