The eclipse rig
The fragment shader that lights this whole site. Scroll turns the terminator and cools the corona; the pointer drifts the body and bends the light toward you.
The bench
The lab.
This domain exists so that nothing untested reaches a client's page. Four things are running on this site right now.
Everything here can be switched off individually. Add
?fx=1 to any URL on this site and a review
panel appears in the corner with a toggle for each effect — the
preloader, the smooth scroll, the shader, the cursor, the reveals, all
of it. It is how a client decides what to cut without anyone rebuilding
anything.
Running here
Live on this page.
The light bus
One angle and one mix travel from the shader into CSS custom properties, so every rim, shadow and rule on the page is lit from the same place. Move the light and watch the page follow.
A heading with a weight axis
SPECTRUM is one variable font, and its weight is tied to the scroll rather than to a keyframe. Type that thickens as the light arrives, instead of type that fades in.
Held under the instrument
Twenty client palettes at once would be noise, so every plate here is graded to the lab's own light, and gives its real colour back under the cursor.
The rig
Forty lines of GLSL, no 3D library.
Analytic sphere · Fresnel rim
fbm corona streamers · starfield
Capped at DPR 2, DPR 1.5 on phones
Paused off-screen and on a hidden tab
Off entirely under reduced motion
Move the pointer · the body drifts and the light follows you
Still standing
Tools and studies.
Single-purpose things
built to answer one question
4
Want the loud version
or the quiet one?
Builds ship with every effect turned on, then get cut back in front of the person paying for them. That is easier to do when you can see what you are cutting.