Loading: Pulse dots

Matt Perry

In this tutorial, we're going to build the Loading: Pulse dots example step-by-step.

This tutorial is rated beginner difficulty, which means we'll spend some time explaining the Motion APIs that we've chosen to use (and why), and also any browser APIs we encounter that might be unfamiliar to beginners.

Here's a live demo of the example we're going to be creating:

Introduction

The Pulse dots example shows how to create a classic three-dot loading animation where each dot pulses in sequence. This common loading indicator pattern is found in messaging apps and loading states.

This example uses the animate function and the stagger function to create a wave effect across multiple elements with minimal code.

Get started

Let's start with the basic HTML structure:

<div class="container">
    <div class="dot"></div>
    <div class="dot"></div>
    <div class="dot"></div>
</div>

<style>
    .container {
        display: flex;
        justify-content: center;
        align-items: center;
        gap: 20px;
    }

    .dot {
        width: 20px;
        height: 20px;
        border-radius: 50%;
        background-color: var(--hue-1);
        will-change: transform;
    }
<

Let's animate!

Import from Motion

Import the functions we need:

<script type="module">
    import { animate, stagger } from "motion"
</script>

Select the dots

Get references to all the dot elements:

const dots = document.querySelectorAll(".dot")

Create the pulsing animation

Now animate all the dots with a single call:

animate(
    dots,
    { scale: [1, 1.5, 1] },
    {
        duration: 1.2,
        repeat: Infinity,
        delay: stagger(0.2),
        ease: "easeInOut",
    }
)

The scale array [1, 1.5, 1] creates a keyframe animation where each dot starts at normal size, grows to 1.5x, then returns to normal.

The key to the wave effect is delay: stagger(0.2). This tells Motion to delay each dot's animation by 0.2 seconds compared to the previous one. The first dot starts immediately, the second after 0.2s, and the third after 0.4s.

Conclusion

We've built a smooth pulsing dots animation using Motion's animate and stagger functions. With just a few lines of code, we created a professional loading indicator that sequences animations across multiple elements.