CSS3 transitions allow property values to change smoothly over time during transitions triggered by events like hover or focus. They are defined using transition properties like transition-property, transition-duration, and transition-timing-function. Multiple properties can transition at once or the shorthand "all" can be used. Transition timing functions like ease allow the transition speed to change over its duration. Browser prefixes like -webkit are needed for compatibility. Transitions are useful for hover effects and other interactive transitions.

1. CSS3 Transitions

2. CSS Transitions Introduction
CSS Transitions allow property changes in CSS values to occur smoothly over a
specified duration. This smoothing animates the changing of a CSS value when
triggered by a mouse click, focus or active state, or any changes to the element
(including even a change on the element’s class attribute).

3. Basic Rollover
HTML:
<a href="#" class="button">Transition me!</a>
CSS:
a.button {
padding: 5px 10px;
background: #4EBFBF;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
}
a.button:hover {
background: #690;
}

4. Basic Rollover with Transition
HTML:
<a href="#" class="button">Transition me!</a>
CSS:
a.button {
padding: 5px 10px;
background: #4EBFBF;
color: #fff;
text-decoration: none;
-moz-transition-property: background;
-moz-transition-duration: 0.3s;
-moz-transition-timing-function: ease;
}
a.button:hover {
background: #690;
}

5. Basic Rollover with Transition
background: #4EBFBF;
transition-property: background;
transition-duration: 0.3s;
transition-timing-function: ease;
transition-property: The property to be transitioned (in this case, the background property)
transition-duration: How long the transition should last (0.3 seconds)
transition-timing-function: How fast the transition happens over time (ease)

6. Timing Function
transition-timing-function: ease;
The timing function value allows the speed of the transition to change over time by
defining one of six possibilities: ease, linear, ease-in, ease-out, ease-in-out, and cubic-
bezier (which allows you to define your own timing curve).

7. Timing Function
If you slept through geometry in high school like I did, don’t worry. I recommend
simply plugging in each of these timing function values to see how they differ.
…For longer animations, the timing function you choose becomes more of an
important piece of the puzzle, as there’s time to notice the speed changes over the
length of the animation.
When in doubt, ease (which is also the default value) or linear should work just fine for
short transitions.
- Dan Cederholm
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understanding-css3-transitions

8. Shorthand Code
transition-property: background;
transition-duration: 0.3s;
transition-timing-function: ease;
Is the same as:
transition: background 0.3s ease;

9. Browser Compatibility
The transition property is not supported in any browsers.
Firefox 4 supports an alternative, the -moz-transition property.
Safari and Chrome support an alternative, the -webkit-transition property.
Opera supports an alternative, the -o-transition property.
-webkit-transition: background 0.3s ease;
-moz-transition: background 0.3s ease;
-o-transition: background 0.3s ease;
transition: background 0.3s ease;

10. Browser Compatibility

11. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the transition properties were placed in the :hover declaration,
since that’s the trigger for the transition?
The answer is that there are other possible states of an element besides :hover, and you’ll likely
want that transition to happen on each of those without duplication.
For instance, you may want the transition to also happen on the :focus or :active pseudo-classes
of the link as well. Instead of having to add the transition property stack to each of those
declarations, the transition instructions are attached to the normal state and therefore declared
only once.
- Dan Cederholm
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understanding-css3-transitions

12. Transitioning multiple properties
Let’s say that along with the background color, we also want to change the link’s text color
and transition that as well. We can do that by stringing multiple transitions together,
separated by a comma. Each can have their varying duration and timing functions .
a.button {
padding: 5px 10px;
background: #4EBFBF;
color: #fff;
-webkit-transition: background .3s ease, color 0.2s linear;
-moz-transition: background .3s ease, color 0.2s linear;
-o-transition: background .3s ease, color 0.2s linear;
transition: background .3s ease, color 0.2s linear;
}
a.button:hover, a.button:focus {
color: #030; background: #690;
}
Text via: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understanding-css3-transitions

13. Transitioning multiple properties
An alternative to listing multiple properties is using the all value. This will transition all
available properties.
Let’s drop all into our simple example instead of listing background and color separately.
They’ll now share the same duration and timing function.
a.button {
padding: 5px 10px;
background: #4EBFBF;
color: #fff;
-webkit-transition: all 0.3s
ease;
-moz-transition: all 0.3s ease;
-o-transition: all 0.3s ease;
transition: all 0.3s ease;
}
a.button:hover, a.button:focus {
color: #030; background: #690;
}
Text via: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/understanding-css3-transitions

14. Example B:
div.exampletransitionb { CSS
width: 520px;
}
div.exampletransitionb div {
background-color: #ED8029;
border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
color: white;
margin: 5px 0;
padding: 5px;
text-align: right;
width: 100px;
}
div.exampletransitionb:hover div {
width: 500px;
}
div.exampletransitionb div.ease {
-moz-transition: all 3s ease 0s; <div class="exampletransitionb">
HTML
}
div.exampletransitionb div.linear {
<div class="ease">ease</div>
-moz-transition: all 3s linear 0s;
}
<div class="linear">linear</div>
div.exampletransitionb div.easein { <div class="easein">ease-in</div>
-moz-transition: all 3s ease-in 0s; <div class="easeout">ease-out</div>
} <div class="easeinout">ease-in-out</div>
div.exampletransitionb div.easeout {
-moz-transition: all 3s ease-out 0s; </div>
}
div.exampletransitionb div.easeinout {
-moz-transition: all 3s ease-in-out 0s;
} Example via: http://www.css3.info/preview/css3-transitions/

15. http://leaverou.github.com/animatable/

16. http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/BlurMenu/index.html

17. Further Reading
www.alistapart.com/articles/understanding-css3-transitions
http://www.w3schools.com/css3/css3_transitions.asp
http://www.impressivewebs.com/css3-transitions-without-hover
http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/more-efficient-css3-transitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation