The Web Animations API is part of a new web standard, currently under development by browser engineers from Mozilla and Google.
Chrome 36 implemented the element.animate() method from the Web Animations API, empowering developers to build performant compositor threaded animations using JavaScript.
We’re excited to see Mozilla have now shipped their implementation of element.animate() in Firefox 48, enabling true cross-browser accelerated animations using this emerging JS API. Google and Mozilla have worked hard together to make sure our implementations are interoperable. This has truly been a collaborative effort!
The benefits in using the Web Animations API can include faster frame-rate with lower power consumption which translates to a better user experience on all devices, especially mobile.
The Web Animations API can be used in all browsers via a polyfill that will use the full speed native implementation where it exists, and gracefully fall back to a JavaScript implementation otherwise. We’re encouraged by the WebKit community considering their own implementation, and the Edge team adding it to their backlog. We look forward to Web Animations soon being supported in all major browsers.
To get the full accelerated Web Animations experience in either Chrome, Firefox or Opera, head over to these demo pages and try it for yourself.