framer-motion-variants

Framer Motion Variants

When to Use This Skill

Apply when building multi-step animations, coordinated animations across multiple elements, or when using variants for state-based animation control. Variants are Framer Motion's way of defining reusable animation states that can be choreographed.

Related skills: For core animation props use framer-motion-core; for React integration use framer-motion-react; for scroll-driven variants use framer-motion-scroll.

Defining Variants

Variants are objects that define animation states:

const container = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    transition: {
      staggerChildren: 0.1
    }
  }
};

const item = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0, y: 20 },
  visible: { opacity: 1, y: 0 }
};

function Component() {
  return (
    <motion.div
      variants={container}
      initial="hidden"
      animate="visible"
    >
      {[1, 2, 3].map(i => (
        <motion.div key={i} variants={item} />
      ))}
    </motion.div>
  );
}

Variant Types

Static Variants

const variants = {
  initial: { opacity: 0 },
  animate: { opacity: 1 },
  exit: { opacity: 0 }
};

Dynamic Variants

const variants = {
  animate: (custom) => ({
    x: custom * 100,
    opacity: 1
  })
};

Orchestration

staggerChildren

Stagger children animations:

const container = {
  hidden: { opacity: 0 },
  visible: {
    opacity: 1,
    transition: {
      staggerChildren: 0.1,
      delayChildren: 0.2
    }
  }
};

staggerDirection

transition: {
  staggerChildren: 0.1,
  staggerDirection: -1  // 1 = forward, -1 = backward
}

Repeating Animations

const variants = {
  animate: {
    scale: [1, 1.5, 1],
    transition: {
      duration: 2,
      repeat: Infinity,
      repeatType: "loop"  // "loop" | "reverse" | "mirror"
    }
  }
};

repeatType Options

Type	Behavior
"loop"	Restart from beginning
"reverse"	Play forward then backward
"mirror"	Swap states on each repeat