CSS3 transition messing up fonts in webkit?

Question

Ever since I added a css transition (first one was on hover, second was an animation) it seems to have messed up my fonts, they look 'different'.

It's totally bizarre, I've looked for hours and can't find anything on it, nor can I figure out exactly why it's happening.

It seems to be ok in firefox, but safari and chrome are having problems.

http://www.simplerweb.co.uk

Everything below the gear animation at the bottom left seems to look like a lighter font weight and the navigation menu seems to look the same.

I am totally lost on this one.

Here's the CSS for the animation.

.gearone {height:100px;
width:100px;
top:-10px;
left:-10px;
position:absolute;
background-position:center;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-image:url(../images/gearone.png);
 -webkit-animation-name:             backrotate; 
    -webkit-animation-duration:        13s; 
    -webkit-animation-iteration-count:  infinite;
    -webkit-transition-timing-function:linear;


-moz-animation-name: backrotate;
     -moz-animation-duration: 13s;
      -moz-animation-timing-function: linear;
    -moz-animation-iteration-count: infinite;
}

.geartwo {height:100px;
width:100px;
position:absolute;
background-position:center;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-image:url(../images/gearone.png);
top:20px;
left:10px;

 -webkit-animation-name:             rotate; 
    -webkit-animation-duration:         13s; 
    -webkit-animation-iteration-count:  infinite;
    -webkit-transition-timing-function:linear;


    -moz-animation-name: rotate;
     -moz-animation-duration: 13s;
      -moz-animation-timing-function:linear;
    -moz-animation-iteration-count: infinite;

}


@-webkit-keyframes rotate {
  from {
    -webkit-transform: rotate(0deg);

  }
  to { 
    -webkit-transform: rotate(360deg);

  }
}

@-moz-keyframes rotate {
from {

    -moz-transform: rotate(0deg);
  }
  to { 

    -moz-transform: rotate(360deg);
  }
}



@-webkit-keyframes backrotate {
    0% {

        -webkit-transform: rotate(360deg);
    }
    100% {

        -webkit-transform: rotate(0deg);
    }
}
@-moz-keyframes backrotate {
    0% {
        -moz-transform: rotate(360deg);

    }
    100% {
        -moz-transform: rotate(0deg);

    }
}

Answer 1

While -webkit-backface-visibility: hidden; is a partial solution; it really ruins the display of your text, especially if you have smoothing / AA enabled. This bug is nasty too, because it happens only when you are using the transform property as well.

After roughly 2 years of sporadically visiting this topic every other month, I found a fix. You need to add a position:relative to the css element that is being animated. There is a catch though, you need to give it a z-index value that is greater than or lower then the element that you see the distortion on. This fixes it 100%.

Since topic doesn't have a 'definite' answer, I hope this answer helps someone who was in the same boat I was in for years.

Answer 2

I was having this issue in Chrome for OSX. Using -webkit-backface-visibility: hidden; fixed the problem.