overlay homepage instead of load new page

overlay homepage instead of load new page

new to jquery, and going for some mighty challenging things right off the bat.

i'm creating a portfolio website where the homepage contains images as links.

when the user clicks on the links, instead of load to a new page,
i would simply like a transparent overlay to occur, so that you can still see the content of the new page laid over the homepage. the user can get back to the homepage if they click on any area that isn't content from that page (over the homepage areas).

the image links on the homepage should also have hover states, which i know can be done using jquery fade in/out.

i just no idea where exactly to start or if jquery can handle it all.

the effects can be found here at this site:
example-website

i noticed that on their site, each image is a link to a new page,
studio-output.com/page1
studio-output.com/page2
studio-output.com/page3
etc.....

but clicking on it still keeps you remaining on the home page. so then i guess the right technique would be to access then display content from the clicked page over the homepage.

what key functions in jquery should i focus on?

any ideas on just where to start would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!