How to Restart an Animation Every Time You Scroll Past an Element with Divi & GSAP

When it comes to animating elements on your page, you’ll most likely want to activate an element’s animation once it enters the viewport. With Divi and its built-in animation settings, as soon as that element has come into view, and has been animated, it will remain static until you reload the entire page. In some cases, you might look for a more consistent approach, where your animation restarts with each viewport entry. Doing this will help you streamline the experience visitors have on your website. In this tutorial, we’ll show you exactly how to do that using Divi, GSAP and ScrollTrigger for GSAP. Once you get the approach, you’ll be able to apply it to any element on your page. You’ll be able to download the JSON file for free as well!

Let’s get to it.

Preview

Before we dive into the tutorial, let’s take a quick look at the outcome across different screen sizes.

Desktop

Mobile

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1. Create Section Design

Add Placeholder Section

Before we start creating the design, we’ll add two placeholder sections to the page we’re working on. That way, we can see the scroll experience once the design is finished. Alternatively, you can use the design inside a page you have already set up. Add a new regular section.

Sizing

Modify the section’s height as follows:

• Height: 100vh

Clone Placeholder Section

Then, clone the section once.

Add New Section Between Placeholder Sections

To create the design you were able to see in the preview of this post, we’ll add a new regular section in between placeholder sections.

Add Row #1

Column Structure

Continue by adding a new row to the section using the following column structure:

Sizing

Without adding modules yet, open the row settings, go to the design tab and change the sizing settings as follows:

• Use Custom Gutter Width: Yes
• Gutter width: 2
• Width: 90%
• Max Width: 2080px

Add Text Module #1 to Column

Add Content

Then, add a first Text Module to the column and include some content of your choice.

Text Settings

Move on to the module’s design tab and change the text settings accordingly:

• Text Font: Montserrat
• Text Font Weight: Heavy
• Text Font Style: Uppercase
• Text Color: #f9f9f9
• Text Size:
  • Desktop: 150px
  • Tablet & Phone: 11vw
• Text Line Height: 1.1em
• Text Alignment: Center

Add Text Module #2 to Column

Add H2 Content

Add another Text Module below the previous one and include some H2 content.

H2 Text Settings

Style the H2 text as follows:

• Heading 2 Font: Montserrat
• Heading 2 Text Alignment: Center
• Heading 2 Text Size:
  • Desktop: 80px
  • Tablet & Phone: 10vw

Sizing

Add a width of 100% too.

• Width: 100%

Position

And reposition the entire module in the advanced tab.

• Position: Absolute
• Location: Center

Add Row #2

Column Structure

Add another row below the previous one, using the following column structure:

Sizing

Without adding modules yet, open the row settings and adjust the sizing settings as follows:

• Use Custom Gutter Width: Yes
• Gutter Width: 2
• Width: 90%
• Max Width: 2080px

Column 1 Settings

Then, open the column 1 settings.

Background Image

Upload a background image of your choice.

• Background Image Size: Cover
• Background Image Position: Center

Spacing

Modify the column’s spacing settings next.

• Top Padding: 100px
• Bottom Padding:
  • Desktop: 400px
  • Tablet & Phone: 200px
• Left Padding: 5.5%
• Right Padding: 5.5%

Add Text Module #1 to Column 1

Add H4 Content

Then, add a Text Module to column 1 with some H4 content.

H4 Text Settings

Style the H4 text accordingly:

• Heading 4 Font: Lato
• Heading 4 Font Weight: Heavy
• Heading 4 Font Style: Uppercase
• Heading 4 Text Size: 13px
• Heading 4 Letter Spacing: 2px

Add Text Module #2 to Column 1

Add H3 Content

Add another Text Module below the previous one, using some H3 content.

H3 Text Settings

Change the H3 text settings accordingly:

• Heading 3 Font: Montserrat
• Heading 3 Text Size: 36px
• Heading 3 Letter Spacing: 1px
• Heading 3 Line Height: 1.2em

Add Text Module #3 to Column 1

Add Description Content

Add the last Text Module containing some description content of your choice.

Text Settings

Change the module’s text settings as follows:

• Text Font: Lato
• Text Color: #4c4c4c
• Text Letter Spacing: 0.5px
• Text Line Height: 2em

Add Button Module to Column 1

Add Copy

The last module we need in this column is a Button Module. Add some copy of your choice.

Button Settings

Style the button in the design tab.

• Use Custom Styles For Button: Yes
• Button Text Size: 14px
• Button Text Color: #ffffff
• Button Background Color: #000000
• Button Border Width: 0px

• Button Font: Lato
• Button Font Weight: Bold
• Button Font Style: Uppercase

Reuse Column 1

Delete Column 2 & 3

Once you’ve completed column 1, and all modules inside it, you can delete the two remaining columns of the row.

Clone Column 1 Twice

And reuse column 1 by cloning it twice.

Change Duplicate Column Background Images

Make sure you change the background image of each duplicate column.

Change Content in Duplicate Columns

Along with the module content.

Add Transform Translate to Column 2 Settings

Then, open the column 2 settings and go to the design tab. Once there, add some transform translate values across different screen sizes to complete the design.

• Left:
  • Desktop: 50px
  • Tablet & Phone: 0px

2. Apply Restart Animation Technique to Design

Add CSS Class to Row #2

Now that our design is in place, we can focus on the restart animation technique. We’re going to target multiple modules at once for this. First, open the second row’s settings and apply the following CSS class:

• CSS Class: trigger-animation-row

Add Code Module to Row #1

The CSS class we’ve added in the previous step of this tutorial will help us target all modules inside this row at once. To create the restart animation, we’re using some JQuery code, the GSAP JavaScript library and the ScrollTrigger library for GSAP. To add this code, we’ll insert a new Code Module below the second Text Module in row #1.

Add GSAP & ScrollTrigger Libraries

Make sure you add the GSAP and ScrollTrigger libraries inside new script tags.

• https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/3.5.1/gsap.min.js
• https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/3.5.1/ScrollTrigger.min.js

Add New Script Tags

Then, add new script tags below the library script tags.

Add GSAP + ScrollTrigger Function

Inside the new script tags, we’ll copy paste the following lines of JQuery code:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){

var $module = $('.trigger-animation-row .et_pb_module');

$module.each(function(){
var $thisModule = $(this);

gsap.from($thisModule[0], {
scrollTrigger: {
trigger: this,
start: "bottom bottom",
end: "center top",
scrub: false,
repeat: -1,
toggleActions:'restart none none reset'
},
opacity: 0,
x: -100,
scale: 1.1,
duration: 2,
ease: "back"
});
});
});

This code will target all row modules at once and will restart the animation as soon as a visitor enters the viewport again. The animation, in this case, is pretty straightforward and minimal. However, with GSAP and ScrollTrigger, you can create any kind of animation you want, so it’s definitely worth looking into!

Preview

Now that we’ve gone through all the steps, let’s take a final look at the outcome across different screen sizes.

Desktop

Mobile

Final Thoughts

In this post, we’ve shown you how to restart an animation as soon as the element enters the viewport. This approach helps you create a consistent experience, no matter how your visitors scroll. You were able to download the JSON file for free as well! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below.

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