jQuery Animation - Infinite motion

Question

I was just playing around jQuery animate(). I tried to make an infinte scrolling background of sorts (fiddle here). But for the life of me I can't figure out a smooth transition. Code posted here -

HTML

<div class='bg r hide'></div>
<div class='bg g hide'></div>
<div class='bg y hide'></div>
<div class='bg b hide'></div>

JavaScript

var backgroundTimeout = 1700;

function animateMotion(){
    $('.bg').each(function(i, item) {
        var self = $(this);
        setTimeout(function() {
            self.css('opacity', '0.5').removeClass('hide')
                .animate({opacity: 1, marginLeft: '+=6'}, backgroundTimeout / 3)
                .animate({
                    marginLeft: '+=30',
                    opacity: 0,
                    queue: false,
                }, backgroundTimeout + 400, 'linear', function() {
                    self.css('marginLeft', 0);
                    self.css('opacity', 1);
                    self.addClass('hide');
                })
                if (self.index() === $('.bg').length - 1) {
                    setTimeout(animateMotion, backgroundTimeout);
                }
        }, backgroundTimeout * i + 1)
    });
}

What I'm going for - 1st div moves out - fades to nothing - halfway through fadeout - next div fades in and starts the cycle again. Any ideas where I'm going wrong?

Answer 1

Not sure if this is where you're aiming at, but have a look:

(function loop(idx) {
  var
    $elements = $('#wrapper div'),
    idx = idx % $elements.length;

  $elements.eq(idx).css({
    opacity: 0,
    left: 0
  }).removeClass('hide').show().animate({
    opacity: 1,
    left: 30
  }, {
    duration: 1000,
    easing: 'linear',
    complete: function () {
      $(this).animate({
        opacity: 0,
        left: 60
      }, {
        duration: 1000,
        easing: 'linear',
        complete: function () {
          $(this).addClass('hide');
        }
      });

      loop(idx + 1);
    }
  });
}(0));

with:

<div id="wrapper">
  <div class='bg r hide'></div>
  <div class='bg g hide'></div>
  <div class='bg y hide'></div>
  <div class='bg b hide'></div>
</div>

demo: http://jsfiddle.net/hbh7z/1/