Why did remove useFrames property in gsap3

[gyofeel]

Hi, I'm still using gsap2 because of useFrames.

The web app I develop is served on row-performance device. So, when I use tweenLite in gsap2, useFrames is nice option to improve the animation performance.

I know gsap3 is cool, but I can't level up gsap. T_T

Any special reasons? Are you considering adding it?

Thank you.

[GreenSock]

Nah, useFrames does absolutely nothing to actually improve performance - all it would do is cause your animations to literally run slower (take longer) on lower end devices. So, for example, if a normal tween is set to a duration of 2 seconds, the useFrames version of that would be set to a certain number of frames (let's say 120) but that means that on a normal device it'd take 2 seconds to finish, but on a device that can only render 30 fps, that same animation would take TWICE as long to finish. Most animators would find that pretty undesireable.

 

Almost nobody used that feature and frankly I felt like it was more harmful than helpful. So in streamlining GSAP 3 and cutting lots of file size, it made sense to remove that feature. 

 

You can get a similar effect by using the lagSmoothing feature in GSAP 3 which automatically adjusts the core timing mechanism when there's enough of a gap between frames, so it'll avoid "jumps" (but of course that also means it would slow down animations on low-end devices when they can't keep up with the frame rate). See https://greensock.com/docs/v3/GSAP/gsap.ticker#lagSmoothing

 

I think you'll really like GSAP 3 once you upgrade. Smaller file size, way more features, and a more intuitive API. See

Happy tweening!