A drifting fog field with a latent grid that develops under the cursor, rendered into a canvas whose backing store is deliberately 0.6x the size of the element it fills. The browser upscales it, and the upscale is invisible because the content was authored for it: no detail finer than a dozen pixels, and the one thing with an edge — the grid — has its line width specified in backing-store pixels rather than CSS pixels. It is a background you can afford, and a demonstration of the cheapest large performance win in WebGL.
Also installs webgl, damp, use-raf, use-in-view, use-visibility, use-resize-observer, use-reduced-motion, use-smooth-pointer from this registry.
03
Prompt
The whole technique, written for an agent.
Build it with your agent
A single self-contained brief: the technique, the constants and why they hold, the pitfalls, and the definition of done. Paste it and the component gets written in your own conventions instead of copied in ours.
# Build: Fractional Render ScaleA drifting fog field with a latent grid that develops under the cursor, rendered into a canvas whose backing store is deliberately 0.6x the size of the element it fills. The browser upscales it, and the upscale is invisible because the content was authored for it: no detail finer than a dozen pixels, and the one thing with an edge — the grid — has its line width specified in backing-store pixels rather than CSS pixels. It is a background you can afford, and a demonstration of the cheapest large performance win in WebGL.Build this as a React component in my project. Match my existing conventions —file layout, styling system, and naming — rather than the ones implied below.Everything after this line is specification, not code to copy verbatim.## What it doesA field rendered into a backing store 0.6x its box — 36% of the fragments — with a grid measured in texels so the upscale never shows.- Category: webgl- Runtime cost: webgl- Dependencies: three@^0.185.1## How it works1. The scale is applied through the pixel ratio: `renderer.setPixelRatio(pixelRatio(maxDpr) * scale)` followed by `setSize(w, h, false)`. three then sizes the backing store to `floor(w * dpr * scale)` while the canvas keeps `width: 100%` from CSS, so one number controls the ratio and there is no second sizing path to keep in sync.2. The achieved ratio is measured rather than assumed. `setSize` floors, so `getDrawingBufferSize().x / cssWidth` can differ from `dpr * scale` by up to a pixel; that measured value becomes `uScale`, and every length the shader treats as a CSS pixel is `gl_FragCoord.xy / uScale`.3. The fog is three sines multiplied and added, then pushed through `smoothstep(-0.15, 1.15, fog)`. It is not trying to be fbm — it is trying to contain no feature smaller than roughly a dozen pixels, which is the precondition for a bilinear upscale being undetectable.4. The grid is drawn from `abs(fract(cell - 0.5) - 0.5) * pxPerCell`, which is the distance to the nearest line expressed in backing-store pixels, and a `smoothstep(width - 0.5, width + 0.5, d)` ramp across exactly one texel. A line specified this way is `1 / scale` CSS pixels wide after the upscale: softer as the scale drops, never thinner, so it cannot fall through the sampling grid.5. No `fwidth`. The grid is axis-aligned in screen space, so the derivative of the cell coordinate is a constant the shader already holds — `uScale * uGridSize` backing pixels per cell. Computing it directly is exact, is one multiply, and needs no derivatives extension.6. The geometry is a single triangle with vertices at (-1,-1), (3,-1) and (-1,3). It covers the viewport with three vertices and no diagonal, so the GPU never shades the seam pixels twice as it does where two triangles of a fullscreen quad meet.7. The pointer is smoothed by `useSmoothPointer` with `perFrameToSmoothing(0.05)`, which reproduces the source's `x += (target - x) * 0.05` at 60 Hz while staying frame-rate independent, and its `nx`/`ny` are flipped to GL's y-up before reaching the uniform.## Constants — use these valuesThese are tuned. Each one has a reason; do not round them off or replace themwith values that "look cleaner".- `renderScale = 0.6` Linear, so the saving is quadratic: 0.36 of the fragments, a 64% cut, about 2.8x less fragment work. A 2560x1440 window drops from 3.7 M fragments a frame to 1.3 M. Below roughly 0.5 the grid lines start to look conspicuously soft against crisp DOM text next to them; above 0.8 there is little left to win.- `MIN_SCALE = 0.25` Floor on the prop. At 0.25 a one-texel line is already four CSS pixels wide — a third of a 44 px cell — and the grid stops reading as a grid and starts reading as a plaid.- `lineWidth = 1 backing pixel` The unit is the whole point. One texel is the finest line the buffer can actually hold; asking for one CSS pixel at 0.6 scale asks for 0.6 of a texel, which the rasteriser answers with a dashed line that crawls as the box resizes.- `gridSize = 44 CSS pixels` Authored in CSS pixels so the grid holds its apparent size when the render scale changes — the entire visual difference between 0.6 and 1.0 should be a slight softening, never a different layout.- `majorEvery = 5` A 220 px major cell. Without a second scale the grid is a flat screen door; with one it acquires depth. Its line is 1.6x the minor width, which survives the upscale as a clear hierarchy where a colour difference alone would not.- `POINTER_ALPHA = 0.05 per frame at 60 Hz` The source chose it to be slower than the eye expects, which reads as viscosity: about 330 ms to close 63% of the gap. Passed through `perFrameToSmoothing` so a 120 Hz display gets the same 330 ms rather than half of it.- `glow exponent = exp(-d * d * 2.2)` A Gaussian on distance normalised by the radius, so `glowRadius` is where the glow has fallen to about 11%. A smoothstep here would put a visible circular edge on a field that has no other edges — the one place the upscale would be caught.- `grid reveal = 0.18 + 0.82 * glow` The grid is mostly latent and the cursor develops it. At full strength everywhere it is a background; appearing under the pointer, it is a surface reacting to being touched. The 0.18 floor keeps the structure legible before the pointer arrives.- `POINTER_EPSILON = 0.0002` Under reduced motion the image is a pure function of the pointer, so frames where it has not moved are skipped entirely. The threshold is well under one pixel of an ordinary box, so no real movement is ever swallowed.## API```tsfunction FractionalRenderScale(props: { renderScale?: number; maxDpr?: number; gridSize?: number; majorEvery?: number; lineWidth?: number; glowRadius?: number; baseColor?: string; fogColor?: string; lineColor?: string; glowColor?: string; className?: string }): JSX.Element```- `renderScale: number` — default `0.6` Backing store size relative to the display pixel ratio. Clamped to 0.25..1.- `maxDpr: number` — default `2` Cap on the device pixel ratio before the render scale is applied.- `gridSize: number` — default `44` Grid spacing in CSS pixels. Floored at 4.- `majorEvery: number` — default `5` Every nth line is drawn as a major one, 1.6x the width.- `lineWidth: number` — default `1` Minor line width in backing-store pixels — not CSS pixels. Floored at 0.5.- `glowRadius: number` — default `240` Cursor glow radius in CSS pixels, at which the glow has fallen to about 11%.- `baseColor: string` — default `'#080b12'` Darkest colour of the field.- `fogColor: string` — default `'#1d3350'` Colour the fog lifts toward.- `lineColor: string` — default `'#8fb6df'` Grid line colour.- `glowColor: string` — default `'#3f7fd0'` Additive colour under the pointer.- `className: string` Merged onto the host element via `cn`.## Reference implementation of the coreThis is the part that is hard to get right. Adapt it; do not treat the rest ofthe component as fixed.```tsxexport function FractionalRenderScale({ renderScale = 0.6, maxDpr = 2, gridSize = 44, majorEvery = 5, lineWidth = 1, glowRadius = 240, baseColor = '#080b12', fogColor = '#1d3350', lineColor = '#8fb6df', glowColor = '#3f7fd0', className,}: FractionalRenderScaleProps) { const host = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null); const stage = useRef<Stage | null>(null); const { width, height } = useResizeObserver(host); const { inView } = useInView(host, { threshold: 0 }); const visible = useVisibility(); const reduced = useReducedMotion(); const pointer = useSmoothPointer({ target: host, smoothing: POINTER_SMOOTHING }); const [supported, setSupported] = useState(true); useEffect(() => setSupported(hasWebGL()), []); /* Read inside resize and draw. Keeping them out of the effect's dependency list means dragging a render-scale slider re-sizes the backing store rather than tearing down the GL context on every step. */ const live = useRef({ renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius }); live.current = { renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius }; const lastPointer = useRef<{ x: number; y: number } | null>(null); const ready = width > 1 && height > 1 && supported; useEffect(() => { const el = host.current; if (!el || !ready) return; const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ // Nothing in the field has a geometric edge, so MSAA has nothing to // sample — and at a fractional scale it would be antialiasing the wrong // grid anyway. antialias: false, // Opaque: the shader covers every pixel, and an alpha channel would make // the compositor blend the canvas over the page for no reason. alpha: false, depth: false, stencil: false, // The entire point of the component. On a laptop with switchable // graphics this keeps a decorative background off the discrete GPU. powerPreference: 'low-power', }); renderer.setClearColor(0x000000, 1); renderer.domElement.style.display = 'block'; // CSS size is 1x and fixed to the box; the backing store is set separately // by setSize(..., false). The gap between the two IS the render scale. renderer.domElement.style.width = '100%'; renderer.domElement.style.height = '100%'; el.appendChild(renderer.domElement); const scene = new THREE.Scene(); const camera = new THREE.Camera(); // One oversized triangle, not a quad. It covers the viewport with three // vertices and no diagonal seam for the GPU to shade twice. const geometry = new THREE.BufferGeometry(); geometry.setAttribute( 'position', new THREE.BufferAttribute(new Float32Array([-1, -1, 0, 3, -1, 0, -1, 3, 0]), 3), ); const uniforms: Uniforms = { uResolution: { value: new THREE.Vector2(1, 1) }, uScale: { value: 1 }, uTime: { value: 0 }, uPointer: { value: new THREE.Vector2(0.5, 0.5) }, uGridSize: { value: gridSize }, uMajorEvery: { value: majorEvery }, uLineWidth: { value: lineWidth }, uGlowRadius: { value: glowRadius }, uBaseColor: { value: new THREE.Color(baseColor) }, uFogColor: { value: new THREE.Color(fogColor) }, uLineColor: { value: new THREE.Color(lineColor) }, uGlowColor: { value: new THREE.Color(glowColor) }, }; const material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({ vertexShader: FRACTIONAL_SCALE_VERT, fragmentShader: FRACTIONAL_SCALE_FRAG, uniforms, depthTest: false, depthWrite: false, }); const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material); // The triangle's vertices sit outside a unit bounding sphere, and there is // no camera transform to cull against in the first place. mesh.frustumCulled = false; scene.add(mesh); const buffer = new THREE.Vector2(); stage.current = { resize(w, h) { const state = live.current; const scale = clamp(state.renderScale, MIN_SCALE, 1); // Scale folded into the pixel ratio: three then multiplies it through // setSize for the backing store while the CSS size stays whatever the // stylesheet says. One number, no second sizing path to keep in sync. renderer.setPixelRatio(pixelRatio(state.maxDpr) * scale); renderer.setSize(w, h, false); renderer.getDrawingBufferSize(buffer); const bw = Math.max(1, Math.round(buffer.x)); const bh = Math.max(1, Math.round(buffer.y)); uniforms.uResolution.value.set(bw, bh); // Measured, not assumed. setSize floors, so the achieved ratio differs // from dpr * scale by up to a pixel — and the grid is authored in CSS // pixels, which would then drift against the layout. uniforms.uScale.value = w > 0 ? bw / w : 1; uniforms.uGridSize.value = Math.max(4, state.gridSize); uniforms.uMajorEvery.value = Math.max(1, Math.round(state.majorEvery)); uniforms.uLineWidth.value = Math.max(0.5, state.lineWidth); uniforms.uGlowRadius.value = Math.max(1, state.glowRadius); }, draw(time, pointerX, pointerY) { uniforms.uTime.value = time; uniforms.uPointer.value.set(pointerX, pointerY); renderer.render(scene, camera); }, }; stage.current.resize(el.clientWidth, el.clientHeight); stage.current.draw(0, 0.5, 0.5); return () => { stage.current = null; geometry.dispose(); material.dispose(); disposeRenderer(renderer); renderer.domElement.remove(); }; // eslint-disable-next-line react-hooks/exhaustive-deps }, [ready, baseColor, fogColor, lineColor, glowColor]); useEffect(() => { const current = stage.current; if (!current || width < 1 || height < 1) return; current.resize(width, height); // Resizing a canvas clears its drawing buffer. When time is frozen the // loop skips every frame in which the pointer has not moved, so the // redraw has to happen here or the field stays blank until it does. When // time is running the next frame covers it a few milliseconds later. if (reduced) { const state = pointer.current; current.draw(0, state.nx, 1 - state.ny); lastPointer.current = { x: state.nx, y: 1 - state.ny }; } }, [ width, height, reduced, renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius, pointer, ]); useRaf( (_dt, elapsed) => { const current = stage.current; if (!current) return; const state = pointer.current; const px = state.nx; // GL's y axis points up; the pointer's does not. const py = 1 - state.ny; // Reduced motion freezes time at 0 rather than stopping the render, so // the fog, the vignette and the cursor glow all survive — only the drift // is gone. With time constant the image is a pure function of the // pointer, so a frame where the pointer has not moved is skippable. if (reduced) { const last = lastPointer.current; if ( last && Math.abs(px - last.x) < POINTER_EPSILON && Math.abs(py - last.y) < POINTER_EPSILON ) { return; } } lastPointer.current = { x: px, y: py }; current.draw(reduced ? 0 : elapsed, px, py); }, ready && inView && visible, );```## RequirementsThese are not optional. A version of this component that skips any of them isnot finished.**Cleanup.** Nulls the stage ref, disposes the triangle geometry and the ShaderMaterial, then calls `disposeRenderer` for `dispose` + `forceContextLoss` + a zeroed drawing buffer, and removes the canvas from the DOM. The canvas is three's own, created inside the effect and appended per effect run, so a StrictMode remount builds a new context instead of reattaching one that was just force-lost. The pointer listener belongs to `useSmoothPointer` and is removed with it; sizing, visibility and the frame loop are all shared subscriptions that release themselves.**Reduced motion.** The component reads `useReducedMotion` itself and freezes `uTime` at 0 rather than stopping the render. The fog, the vignette, the grid and the cursor glow are all still drawn — none of them depends on time — so what is lost is exactly the drift and nothing else. With time constant the image is a pure function of the pointer, so the loop skips any frame in which the pointer has not moved by more than 0.0002, and a still page costs nothing beyond the empty rAF callback.**Frame-rate independence.** Any smoothing must be a function of delta time.`x += (target - x) * 0.1` converges twice as fast at 120 Hz as at 60 Hz; use`x = target + (x - target) * Math.pow(smoothing, dt)` instead, where`smoothing` is the fraction of the gap remaining after one second.**Strict mode.** Assume effects run twice in development. Setup must beidempotent and teardown must fully undo it.## Known pitfalls — avoid these specifically- Setting only `canvas.width` and forgetting the CSS size, or the reverse. Either mistake produces a canvas that is simply smaller or simply blurrier than intended; the technique is the deliberate gap between the two sizes, and both have to be set on purpose.- Putting `image-rendering: pixelated` on the canvas — sometimes inherited from a global rule aimed at sprite art. It replaces the bilinear upscale with nearest-neighbour and the entire effect turns into visible blocks.- Specifying line widths, glow radii or grid spacing in device pixels via raw `gl_FragCoord`. Everything is tuned on one machine and then renders at 0.6 of that size at 0.6 scale, and a third of it again on a 3x phone. Divide by the measured scale and author in CSS pixels.- Rendering content with fine detail at a fractional scale. Text, hairlines, high-frequency noise and hard-edged shapes all alias the moment the buffer shrinks. This technique is for soft fields, and content and scale have to be chosen together.- Listening to `window.resize` instead of observing the element. A sidebar opening, a font loading and reflowing, or a flex sibling changing all resize the box with no window event — and `ResizeObserver` also fires once on observe, which handles the initial size with no separate call.- Forgetting that resizing the canvas clears its drawing buffer. Any component that skips frames — as this one does when time is frozen — goes blank after a resize unless the resize path redraws explicitly.- Reading `dpr * scale` back as the achieved ratio. `setSize` floors the backing store, so on most box widths the real ratio is slightly lower; using the nominal value makes the grid drift by a pixel against the layout as the window changes.- Suppressing the render entirely under reduced motion. Time frozen at 0 still gives the fog, the vignette and the cursor glow, because none of them depend on it — a far better degradation than a flat colour, and the accessibility requirement is about motion, not about the image.- Assuming `antialias: true` helps. There is no geometric edge to sample: the only visible edges come from the fragment shader, MSAA does not see them, and the request costs a multisampled buffer of the same size as everything just saved.## Notes- The renderer is created with `powerPreference: "low-power"`. On a laptop with switchable graphics this keeps a decorative background off the discrete GPU, which is worth more battery than the render scale itself.- `renderScale` and `maxDpr` are read from a ref inside the resize path, so changing them re-sizes the backing store without rebuilding the GL context — a render-scale slider can be dragged live.- A useful way to see the technique: set `renderScale` to 1 and then to 0.6 and watch the grid rather than the fog. The lines soften very slightly and nothing else about the image changes, while the fragment count falls by two thirds.- The colours are individual string props rather than an array, so a caller passing literals does not hand the effect a new identity on every render.## Definition of doneA soft blue fog drifting behind a faint grid, with the grid brightening into a pool under the cursor that trails a third of a second behind it. Open DevTools and the canvas element reports a backing store of 0.6 of its CSS size — the technique is verifiable, not merely claimed — while the image shows no blockiness and the grid lines stay continuous rather than dashed. Resize the window slowly: the grid keeps its 44 px spacing against the layout and never crawls. With reduced motion the fog stops drifting and everything else, cursor glow included, still works.When you are finished, tell me which of the requirements above you implementedand where, so I can check them.
'use client';import { useEffect, useRef, useState } from 'react';import * as THREE from 'three';import { cn } from '@/lib/utils';import { useInView } from '@/hooks/use-in-view';import { useRaf } from '@/hooks/use-raf';import { useReducedMotion } from '@/hooks/use-reduced-motion';import { useResizeObserver } from '@/hooks/use-resize-observer';import { useSmoothPointer } from '@/hooks/use-smooth-pointer';import { useVisibility } from '@/hooks/use-visibility';import { clamp, perFrameToSmoothing } from '@/lib/damp';import { disposeRenderer, hasWebGL, pixelRatio } from '@/lib/webgl';import { FRACTIONAL_SCALE_FRAG, FRACTIONAL_SCALE_VERT,} from '@/components/motion/shaders/fractional-render-scale';/* ========================================================================== Fractional Render Scale -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A full-bleed shader field whose backing store is 0.6x the size of the box it fills. The CSS size stays 1x, so the browser upscales — and 0.6 linear is 0.36 of the pixels, a 64% cut in fragment shader work. A 2560x1440 window is 3.7 M fragments a frame at 1x and 1.3 M at 0.6x; the same window on a 2x screen is 14.7 M against 5.3 M. Everything else in the file exists to make that invisible: - the fog has no detail finer than a dozen pixels, so bilinear upsampling has nothing to soften that was not already soft; - the grid's line width is specified in BACKING-STORE pixels, so it gets wider in CSS terms as the scale drops instead of thinner — a line authored in CSS pixels would fall below one texel at 0.6 and stipple; - the canvas keeps the browser's default smoothing. `image-rendering: pixelated` on this element would undo the entire technique. The scale is applied through the device pixel ratio, so it composes with a 3x screen instead of fighting it: 0.6 always means "0.36 of the fragments this display would otherwise ask for". ========================================================================== */export interface FractionalRenderScaleProps { /** Backing store size relative to the display's own pixel ratio. */ renderScale?: number; /** Cap on the device pixel ratio before the scale is applied. */ maxDpr?: number; /** Grid spacing in CSS pixels. */ gridSize?: number; /** Every nth line is a major one. */ majorEvery?: number; /** Minor line width in BACKING-STORE pixels. Not CSS pixels — see the header. */ lineWidth?: number; /** Cursor glow radius in CSS pixels. */ glowRadius?: number; /** Darkest colour of the field. */ baseColor?: string; /** Colour the fog lifts toward. */ fogColor?: string; /** Grid line colour. */ lineColor?: string; /** Additive colour under the pointer. */ glowColor?: string; className?: string;}/** * The source eases the pointer with `x += (target - x) * 0.05` every frame, * which is frame-rate dependent by design: it makes the glow trail the cursor * rather than stick to it. `perFrameToSmoothing` reproduces that feel exactly * at 60 Hz — 0.95^60 of the gap left after a second — while behaving the same * on a 120 Hz display, where the raw form would arrive twice as fast. */const POINTER_ALPHA = 0.05;const POINTER_SMOOTHING = perFrameToSmoothing(POINTER_ALPHA);/** Below this the grid's one-texel line is wider than a third of a cell. */const MIN_SCALE = 0.25;/** Pointer movement, in normalised units, that is worth a redraw when frozen. */const POINTER_EPSILON = 0.0002;interface Uniforms { [name: string]: THREE.IUniform; uResolution: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Vector2>; uScale: THREE.IUniform<number>; uTime: THREE.IUniform<number>; uPointer: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Vector2>; uGridSize: THREE.IUniform<number>; uMajorEvery: THREE.IUniform<number>; uLineWidth: THREE.IUniform<number>; uGlowRadius: THREE.IUniform<number>; uBaseColor: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Color>; uFogColor: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Color>; uLineColor: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Color>; uGlowColor: THREE.IUniform<THREE.Color>;}interface Stage { resize(width: number, height: number): void; draw(time: number, pointerX: number, pointerY: number): void;}// #region criticalexport function FractionalRenderScale({ renderScale = 0.6, maxDpr = 2, gridSize = 44, majorEvery = 5, lineWidth = 1, glowRadius = 240, baseColor = '#080b12', fogColor = '#1d3350', lineColor = '#8fb6df', glowColor = '#3f7fd0', className,}: FractionalRenderScaleProps) { const host = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null); const stage = useRef<Stage | null>(null); const { width, height } = useResizeObserver(host); const { inView } = useInView(host, { threshold: 0 }); const visible = useVisibility(); const reduced = useReducedMotion(); const pointer = useSmoothPointer({ target: host, smoothing: POINTER_SMOOTHING }); const [supported, setSupported] = useState(true); useEffect(() => setSupported(hasWebGL()), []); /* Read inside resize and draw. Keeping them out of the effect's dependency list means dragging a render-scale slider re-sizes the backing store rather than tearing down the GL context on every step. */ const live = useRef({ renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius }); live.current = { renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius }; const lastPointer = useRef<{ x: number; y: number } | null>(null); const ready = width > 1 && height > 1 && supported; useEffect(() => { const el = host.current; if (!el || !ready) return; const renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ // Nothing in the field has a geometric edge, so MSAA has nothing to // sample — and at a fractional scale it would be antialiasing the wrong // grid anyway. antialias: false, // Opaque: the shader covers every pixel, and an alpha channel would make // the compositor blend the canvas over the page for no reason. alpha: false, depth: false, stencil: false, // The entire point of the component. On a laptop with switchable // graphics this keeps a decorative background off the discrete GPU. powerPreference: 'low-power', }); renderer.setClearColor(0x000000, 1); renderer.domElement.style.display = 'block'; // CSS size is 1x and fixed to the box; the backing store is set separately // by setSize(..., false). The gap between the two IS the render scale. renderer.domElement.style.width = '100%'; renderer.domElement.style.height = '100%'; el.appendChild(renderer.domElement); const scene = new THREE.Scene(); const camera = new THREE.Camera(); // One oversized triangle, not a quad. It covers the viewport with three // vertices and no diagonal seam for the GPU to shade twice. const geometry = new THREE.BufferGeometry(); geometry.setAttribute( 'position', new THREE.BufferAttribute(new Float32Array([-1, -1, 0, 3, -1, 0, -1, 3, 0]), 3), ); const uniforms: Uniforms = { uResolution: { value: new THREE.Vector2(1, 1) }, uScale: { value: 1 }, uTime: { value: 0 }, uPointer: { value: new THREE.Vector2(0.5, 0.5) }, uGridSize: { value: gridSize }, uMajorEvery: { value: majorEvery }, uLineWidth: { value: lineWidth }, uGlowRadius: { value: glowRadius }, uBaseColor: { value: new THREE.Color(baseColor) }, uFogColor: { value: new THREE.Color(fogColor) }, uLineColor: { value: new THREE.Color(lineColor) }, uGlowColor: { value: new THREE.Color(glowColor) }, }; const material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({ vertexShader: FRACTIONAL_SCALE_VERT, fragmentShader: FRACTIONAL_SCALE_FRAG, uniforms, depthTest: false, depthWrite: false, }); const mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material); // The triangle's vertices sit outside a unit bounding sphere, and there is // no camera transform to cull against in the first place. mesh.frustumCulled = false; scene.add(mesh); const buffer = new THREE.Vector2(); stage.current = { resize(w, h) { const state = live.current; const scale = clamp(state.renderScale, MIN_SCALE, 1); // Scale folded into the pixel ratio: three then multiplies it through // setSize for the backing store while the CSS size stays whatever the // stylesheet says. One number, no second sizing path to keep in sync. renderer.setPixelRatio(pixelRatio(state.maxDpr) * scale); renderer.setSize(w, h, false); renderer.getDrawingBufferSize(buffer); const bw = Math.max(1, Math.round(buffer.x)); const bh = Math.max(1, Math.round(buffer.y)); uniforms.uResolution.value.set(bw, bh); // Measured, not assumed. setSize floors, so the achieved ratio differs // from dpr * scale by up to a pixel — and the grid is authored in CSS // pixels, which would then drift against the layout. uniforms.uScale.value = w > 0 ? bw / w : 1; uniforms.uGridSize.value = Math.max(4, state.gridSize); uniforms.uMajorEvery.value = Math.max(1, Math.round(state.majorEvery)); uniforms.uLineWidth.value = Math.max(0.5, state.lineWidth); uniforms.uGlowRadius.value = Math.max(1, state.glowRadius); }, draw(time, pointerX, pointerY) { uniforms.uTime.value = time; uniforms.uPointer.value.set(pointerX, pointerY); renderer.render(scene, camera); }, }; stage.current.resize(el.clientWidth, el.clientHeight); stage.current.draw(0, 0.5, 0.5); return () => { stage.current = null; geometry.dispose(); material.dispose(); disposeRenderer(renderer); renderer.domElement.remove(); }; // eslint-disable-next-line react-hooks/exhaustive-deps }, [ready, baseColor, fogColor, lineColor, glowColor]); useEffect(() => { const current = stage.current; if (!current || width < 1 || height < 1) return; current.resize(width, height); // Resizing a canvas clears its drawing buffer. When time is frozen the // loop skips every frame in which the pointer has not moved, so the // redraw has to happen here or the field stays blank until it does. When // time is running the next frame covers it a few milliseconds later. if (reduced) { const state = pointer.current; current.draw(0, state.nx, 1 - state.ny); lastPointer.current = { x: state.nx, y: 1 - state.ny }; } }, [ width, height, reduced, renderScale, maxDpr, gridSize, majorEvery, lineWidth, glowRadius, pointer, ]); useRaf( (_dt, elapsed) => { const current = stage.current; if (!current) return; const state = pointer.current; const px = state.nx; // GL's y axis points up; the pointer's does not. const py = 1 - state.ny; // Reduced motion freezes time at 0 rather than stopping the render, so // the fog, the vignette and the cursor glow all survive — only the drift // is gone. With time constant the image is a pure function of the // pointer, so a frame where the pointer has not moved is skippable. if (reduced) { const last = lastPointer.current; if ( last && Math.abs(px - last.x) < POINTER_EPSILON && Math.abs(py - last.y) < POINTER_EPSILON ) { return; } } lastPointer.current = { x: px, y: py }; current.draw(reduced ? 0 : elapsed, px, py); }, ready && inView && visible, ); // #endregion critical return ( <div className={cn('relative h-full w-full overflow-hidden', className)}> <div ref={host} className="absolute inset-0" /> {!supported ? ( <div className="absolute inset-0" style={{ backgroundColor: baseColor, backgroundImage: `radial-gradient(70% 70% at 50% 45%, ${fogColor}, transparent 75%), repeating-linear-gradient(0deg, ${lineColor}22 0 1px, transparent 1px ${gridSize}px), repeating-linear-gradient(90deg, ${lineColor}22 0 1px, transparent 1px ${gridSize}px)`, }} /> ) : null} </div> );}
/* ========================================================================== Fractional Render Scale — GLSL -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A field that is deliberately rendered into a backing store smaller than the element it fills, and is written so the upscale cannot be seen. Two rules make that possible, and both live in this file: 1. Nothing has a hard edge. The fog is smoothstepped into mush, so bilinear upsampling has nothing to blur that was not already blurred. 2. The one thing that DOES have an edge — the grid — is measured in BACKING-STORE pixels, not in CSS pixels. A line specified as one backing pixel is 1/scale CSS pixels after the upscale: softer and wider as the scale drops, never thinner, so it can never fall through the sampling grid and break into dashes. Note the absence of fwidth(). The grid is axis-aligned in screen space, so the derivative of the cell coordinate is a constant this shader already knows — uScale * uGridSize backing pixels per cell. Computing it directly is exact, costs one multiply, and needs no derivatives extension. ========================================================================== *//** * A single triangle covering the viewport, not a quad. * * Two triangles meet along the diagonal, and every quad-based fullscreen pass * pays for that seam: the GPU shades in 2x2 quads, so the pixels along the * diagonal are shaded by both triangles. One oversized triangle is three * vertices, no seam, and a marginally better cache pattern. */export const FRACTIONAL_SCALE_VERT = /* glsl */ `void main() { gl_Position = vec4(position.xy, 0.0, 1.0);}`;export const FRACTIONAL_SCALE_FRAG = /* glsl */ `precision mediump float;uniform vec2 uResolution;uniform float uScale;uniform float uTime;uniform vec2 uPointer;uniform float uGridSize;uniform float uMajorEvery;uniform float uLineWidth;uniform float uGlowRadius;uniform vec3 uBaseColor;uniform vec3 uFogColor;uniform vec3 uLineColor;uniform vec3 uGlowColor;/* Distance to the nearest cell boundary, in BACKING-STORE pixels. cell is the coordinate in cell units; pxPerCell converts back. The 0.5 offsets put the boundary at integer cell values. */float gridBand(vec2 cell, float pxPerCell, float width) { vec2 d = abs(fract(cell - 0.5) - 0.5) * pxPerCell; float nearest = min(d.x, d.y); /* A one-pixel ramp centred on the requested width. Because the units are backing pixels, this ramp is always exactly one texel wide whatever the render scale — which is the whole trick. */ return 1.0 - smoothstep(width - 0.5, width + 0.5, nearest);}void main() { vec2 frag = gl_FragCoord.xy; vec2 uv = frag / uResolution; /* CSS pixels, y up. Everything a designer would specify in px is measured here, so the layout does not change when uScale does. */ vec2 css = frag / uScale; float aspect = uResolution.x / uResolution.y; vec2 p = uv * vec2(aspect, 1.0); /* Three sines and a hard smoothstep. This is not trying to be fbm — it is trying to have no detail smaller than a dozen pixels, which is what makes rendering it at 0.6 and letting the browser stretch it undetectable. */ float fog = 0.5 + 0.5 * sin(p.x * 2.3 + uTime * 0.21); fog *= 0.5 + 0.5 * sin(p.y * 3.1 - uTime * 0.17 + 1.7); fog += 0.35 * sin((p.x + p.y) * 1.7 + uTime * 0.11); fog = smoothstep(-0.15, 1.15, fog); vec3 color = mix(uBaseColor, uFogColor, fog * 0.85); /* Pointer arrives 0..1 with y already flipped to GL's up. Converting it to CSS pixels means the glow radius is a real px value and does not stretch with the aspect ratio of the box. */ vec2 pointerCss = uPointer * (uResolution / uScale); float d = length(css - pointerCss) / max(uGlowRadius, 1.0); float glow = exp(-d * d * 2.2); float pxPerCell = uScale * uGridSize; float minor = gridBand(css / uGridSize, pxPerCell, uLineWidth); float major = gridBand(css / (uGridSize * uMajorEvery), pxPerCell * uMajorEvery, uLineWidth * 1.6); /* The grid is mostly latent and the cursor develops it. A grid at full strength everywhere is a background; a grid that appears under the pointer is the surface reacting to being touched. */ float lines = max(minor * 0.34, major * 0.7) * (0.18 + 0.82 * glow); color = mix(color, uLineColor, lines); color += uGlowColor * glow * 0.36; /* Square-space vignette, so it stays circular in a wide box. */ vec2 v = (uv - vec2(0.5)) * vec2(aspect, 1.0); color *= 1.0 - 0.55 * smoothstep(0.28, 1.0, length(v)); gl_FragColor = vec4(color, 1.0);}`;
/* ========================================================================== Frame-rate-independent interpolation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The everywhere-idiom `x += (target - x) * 0.1` is a bug: it converges twice as fast on a 120 Hz display as on a 60 Hz one, so the same code feels different on different hardware and visibly speeds up when the browser drops frames. `damp` fixes it by raising the retention factor to the power of elapsed time, which is the exact continuous form of the same curve. ========================================================================== *//** * Fraction of the remaining distance to close this frame. * * @param smoothing Fraction of the gap that REMAINS after one second. * Smaller is snappier. 0.001 ≈ very fast, 0.01 ≈ fast, 0.1 ≈ soft, * 0.5 ≈ slow drift. * @param dt Seconds elapsed since the previous frame. */export function dampFactor(smoothing: number, dt: number): number { return 1 - Math.pow(smoothing, dt);}/** Move `current` toward `target` at a rate independent of frame rate. */export function damp( current: number, target: number, smoothing: number, dt: number,): number { return current + (target - current) * dampFactor(smoothing, dt);}/** * The per-frame lerp constant an author measured at 60fps, converted into the * `smoothing` argument `damp` wants. Lets a source that says "0.1 per frame" * be ported without re-tuning by eye: * * damp(x, t, perFrameToSmoothing(0.1), dt) */export function perFrameToSmoothing(alpha: number, baseFps = 60): number { return Math.pow(1 - alpha, baseFps);}export function lerp(a: number, b: number, t: number): number { return a + (b - a) * t;}export function clamp(v: number, min: number, max: number): number { return v < min ? min : v > max ? max : v;}export function inverseLerp(a: number, b: number, v: number): number { return a === b ? 0 : (v - a) / (b - a);}export function mapRange( v: number, inMin: number, inMax: number, outMin: number, outMax: number, doClamp = true,): number { const t = inverseLerp(inMin, inMax, v); const r = lerp(outMin, outMax, doClamp ? clamp(t, 0, 1) : t); return r;}/** GLSL `smoothstep`, same semantics, for parity between JS and shader code. */export function smoothstep(edge0: number, edge1: number, x: number): number { const t = clamp(inverseLerp(edge0, edge1, x), 0, 1); return t * t * (3 - 2 * t);}/** * Gaussian falloff, `exp(-d²)`. Yields 1.000 / 0.368 / 0.018 / 0.0001 at * distances 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 — a continuous focus scalar with no thresholds and * no branches, which is why carousels that use it feel analogue rather than * stepped. */export function gaussian(distance: number, falloff = 1): number { const d = distance * falloff; return Math.exp(-(d * d));}
'use client';import { useEffect, useRef, useState, type RefObject } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== IntersectionObserver, sharing one observer per option set. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A hundred cards each constructing their own observer is a hundred observers the compositor has to service. Keying a shared observer by its options collapses that to one per distinct configuration — in practice, two or three for the whole site. ========================================================================== */export interface InViewState { inView: boolean; /** 0-1. The preview slot allocator ranks candidates by this. */ ratio: number;}export interface UseInViewOptions { root?: Element | null; rootMargin?: string; /** Single number or list, same meaning as the native option. */ threshold?: number | number[]; /** Stop observing after the first time it becomes visible. */ once?: boolean;}type Entry = { observer: IntersectionObserver; handlers: Map<Element, (e: IntersectionObserverEntry) => void>;};const pools = new Map<string, Entry>();function poolFor(options: UseInViewOptions): Entry { const key = JSON.stringify({ rootMargin: options.rootMargin ?? '0px', threshold: options.threshold ?? 0, }); const existing = pools.get(key); if (existing) return existing; const handlers = new Map<Element, (e: IntersectionObserverEntry) => void>(); const observer = new IntersectionObserver( (entries) => { for (const entry of entries) handlers.get(entry.target)?.(entry); }, { root: options.root ?? null, rootMargin: options.rootMargin ?? '0px', threshold: options.threshold ?? 0, }, ); const created: Entry = { observer, handlers }; pools.set(key, created); return created;}export function useInView( ref: RefObject<Element | null>, options: UseInViewOptions = {},): InViewState { const [state, setState] = useState<InViewState>({ inView: false, ratio: 0 }); const { root = null, rootMargin = '0px', once = false } = options; const thresholdKey = JSON.stringify(options.threshold ?? 0); const done = useRef(false); useEffect(() => { const el = ref.current; if (!el || typeof IntersectionObserver === 'undefined') return; if (once && done.current) return; const pool = poolFor({ root, rootMargin, threshold: JSON.parse(thresholdKey) as number | number[], }); const handle = (entry: IntersectionObserverEntry) => { setState({ inView: entry.isIntersecting, ratio: entry.intersectionRatio }); if (once && entry.isIntersecting) { done.current = true; pool.handlers.delete(el); pool.observer.unobserve(el); } }; pool.handlers.set(el, handle); pool.observer.observe(el); return () => { pool.handlers.delete(el); pool.observer.unobserve(el); }; }, [ref, root, rootMargin, thresholdKey, once]); return state;}
'use client';import { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== One shared requestAnimationFrame loop. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forty components each calling requestAnimationFrame means forty callbacks the browser schedules separately and forty chances to read layout after a write. One loop, one ordered pass, one place to clamp delta time. Delta is clamped to 100 ms. Without that, returning to a backgrounded tab delivers a multi-second dt and every physics integration in the page explodes on the first frame back. ========================================================================== */export type RafCallback = (dt: number, elapsed: number) => void;const callbacks = new Set<RafCallback>();let frame = 0;let last = 0;let start = 0;const MAX_DT = 0.1;const DEFAULT_DT = 1 / 60;function tick(now: number) { frame = requestAnimationFrame(tick); const dt = last === 0 ? DEFAULT_DT : Math.min((now - last) / 1000, MAX_DT); last = now; const elapsed = (now - start) / 1000; // Copy: a callback may unsubscribe itself (or another) mid-iteration. for (const cb of Array.from(callbacks)) { if (callbacks.has(cb)) cb(dt, elapsed); }}function subscribe(cb: RafCallback) { callbacks.add(cb); if (frame === 0) { start = performance.now(); last = 0; frame = requestAnimationFrame(tick); } return () => { callbacks.delete(cb); if (callbacks.size === 0 && frame !== 0) { cancelAnimationFrame(frame); frame = 0; last = 0; } };}/** * Run `cb` every frame while `enabled`. * * The callback is held in a ref, so it does not need to be memoised and the * subscription is never torn down just because the closure changed identity. */export function useRaf(cb: RafCallback, enabled = true): void { const ref = useRef(cb); ref.current = cb; useEffect(() => { if (!enabled) return; return subscribe((dt, elapsed) => ref.current(dt, elapsed)); }, [enabled]);}
'use client';import { useSyncExternalStore } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== prefers-reduced-motion, SSR-safe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- useSyncExternalStore rather than useState + useEffect: the server snapshot is an explicit `false`, so the markup React renders on the server and the markup it hydrates with agree, and the real value lands in the same commit as hydration instead of one frame later. A useEffect version flashes the animated variant before removing it — the exact thing the user asked not to see. Reduced motion is not "duration: 0". For most components here it means a different render: the final state, a static poster, or a paused frame. ========================================================================== */const QUERY = '(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)';function subscribe(onChange: () => void) { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return () => {}; const mql = window.matchMedia(QUERY); mql.addEventListener('change', onChange); return () => mql.removeEventListener('change', onChange);}function getSnapshot() { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return false; return window.matchMedia(QUERY).matches;}function getServerSnapshot() { return false;}export function useReducedMotion(): boolean { return useSyncExternalStore(subscribe, getSnapshot, getServerSnapshot);}/** Generic media-query hook, same SSR guarantees. */export function useMediaQuery(query: string): boolean { return useSyncExternalStore( (onChange) => { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return () => {}; const mql = window.matchMedia(query); mql.addEventListener('change', onChange); return () => mql.removeEventListener('change', onChange); }, () => { if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !window.matchMedia) return false; return window.matchMedia(query).matches; }, () => false, );}
'use client';import { useEffect, useState, type RefObject } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== Element size, from one shared ResizeObserver. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sized from the element rather than the window because a preview in a grid cell resizes when the grid reflows, not when the viewport does. Reading `window.innerWidth` is the reason so many canvas components are correct on load and wrong after a sidebar opens. ========================================================================== */export interface Size { width: number; height: number;}type Handler = (size: Size) => void;let observer: ResizeObserver | null = null;const handlers = new Map<Element, Handler>();function ensureObserver(): ResizeObserver | null { if (typeof ResizeObserver === 'undefined') return null; observer ??= new ResizeObserver((entries) => { for (const entry of entries) { const box = entry.contentBoxSize?.[0]; const size: Size = box ? { width: box.inlineSize, height: box.blockSize } : { width: entry.contentRect.width, height: entry.contentRect.height }; handlers.get(entry.target)?.(size); } }); return observer;}export function useResizeObserver(ref: RefObject<Element | null>): Size { const [size, setSize] = useState<Size>({ width: 0, height: 0 }); useEffect(() => { const el = ref.current; const ro = ensureObserver(); if (!el || !ro) return; // Seed synchronously: waiting for the first observer callback leaves one // frame where a canvas is sized 0x0, which some drivers log as an error. const rect = el.getBoundingClientRect(); setSize({ width: rect.width, height: rect.height }); handlers.set(el, (next) => setSize((prev) => prev.width === next.width && prev.height === next.height ? prev : next, ), ); ro.observe(el); return () => { handlers.delete(el); ro.unobserve(el); }; }, [ref]); return size;}
'use client';import { useEffect, useRef, type RefObject } from 'react';import { useRaf } from '@/hooks/use-raf';import { damp } from '@/lib/damp';/* ========================================================================== Pointer position, smoothed, in several coordinate spaces at once. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Almost every cursor effect wants the same four things and computes them slightly differently each time: client pixels, element-local pixels, 0..1 normalised, and -1..1 NDC for shaders. Producing all four from one damped source keeps a cursor dot and the shader it drives exactly in step. Exposed via ref for the same reason as scroll velocity: per-frame values must not re-render. ========================================================================== */export interface PointerState { /** Viewport pixels. */ clientX: number; clientY: number; /** Pixels relative to the target element's top-left. */ x: number; y: number; /** 0..1 across the element. */ nx: number; ny: number; /** -1..1, y up. Feed straight into a shader uniform. */ ndcX: number; ndcY: number; /** Whether the pointer has been seen. Nothing should render before. */ active: boolean;}export interface UseSmoothPointerOptions { /** Fraction of the gap remaining after one second. Lower = tighter. */ smoothing?: number; /** Listen on this element rather than the window. */ target?: RefObject<HTMLElement | null>; /** Follow touch drags as well as mouse moves. */ touch?: boolean;}function makeInitialState(): PointerState { return { clientX: 0, clientY: 0, x: 0, y: 0, nx: 0.5, ny: 0.5, ndcX: 0, ndcY: 0, active: false, };}export function useSmoothPointer( options: UseSmoothPointerOptions = {},): { current: PointerState } { const { smoothing = 0.001, target, touch = true } = options; const state = useRef<PointerState>(makeInitialState()); // `null` means "no real pointer yet", which is distinct from a legitimate // pointer at (0, 0) in the top-left corner. const targetPos = useRef<{ clientX: number; clientY: number } | null>(null); const seeded = useRef(false); // Options the listener needs but that must not re-subscribe it on change. const touchRef = useRef(touch); touchRef.current = touch; useEffect(() => { const el = target?.current ?? null; const node: HTMLElement | Window = el ?? window; const onMove = (event: Event) => { const e = event as PointerEvent; if (!touchRef.current && e.pointerType === 'touch') return; targetPos.current = { clientX: e.clientX, clientY: e.clientY }; }; node.addEventListener('pointermove', onMove, { passive: true }); return () => node.removeEventListener('pointermove', onMove); // `target` is a ref object; its identity is stable for the component's // lifetime, so this subscribes once. }, [target]); useRaf((dt) => { const el = target?.current ?? null; const rect = el ? el.getBoundingClientRect() : { left: 0, top: 0, width: window.innerWidth, height: window.innerHeight, }; const pointer = targetPos.current; if (pointer === null) { // Park at the centre until a real pointer arrives, so the first move // eases out from the middle rather than snapping in from (0, 0). Done // once — re-centring every frame would fight a slow first movement. if (!seeded.current && rect.width > 0 && rect.height > 0) { seeded.current = true; const cx = rect.left + rect.width / 2; const cy = rect.top + rect.height / 2; state.current = { ...state.current, clientX: cx, clientY: cy, x: cx - rect.left, y: cy - rect.top, }; } return; } const clientX = damp(state.current.clientX, pointer.clientX, smoothing, dt); const clientY = damp(state.current.clientY, pointer.clientY, smoothing, dt); const x = clientX - rect.left; const y = clientY - rect.top; const nx = rect.width > 0 ? x / rect.width : 0.5; const ny = rect.height > 0 ? y / rect.height : 0.5; state.current = { clientX, clientY, x, y, nx, ny, ndcX: nx * 2 - 1, ndcY: -(ny * 2 - 1), active: true, }; }); return state;}
'use client';import { useSyncExternalStore } from 'react';/* ========================================================================== Document visibility, shared. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A backgrounded tab still runs `setInterval`, still holds WebGL contexts, and — on some platforms — still gets throttled rAF ticks with multi-second deltas. Anything expensive should stop when the tab is hidden and resume when it comes back, rather than trying to catch up. `useSyncExternalStore` with an explicit server snapshot so SSR markup and the first client render agree. ========================================================================== */function subscribe(onChange: () => void): () => void { document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', onChange); return () => document.removeEventListener('visibilitychange', onChange);}function getSnapshot(): boolean { return document.visibilityState === 'visible';}/** Assume visible on the server: the alternative flashes a paused state. */function getServerSnapshot(): boolean { return true;}export function useVisibility(): boolean { return useSyncExternalStore(subscribe, getSnapshot, getServerSnapshot);}
import type * as THREE from 'three';/* ========================================================================== WebGL context lifecycle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chromium allows roughly 16 live WebGL contexts per RENDERER PROCESS (8 on low-end devices). Creating the 17th does not fail — it fires `webglcontextlost` on the OLDEST one, so an unrelated component elsewhere on the page goes black. Same-origin iframes share the renderer process, so isolating previews in iframes does not raise the ceiling. The only real fix is to release contexts on unmount, and `renderer.dispose()` ALONE DOES NOT DO THAT. It frees GPU objects but leaves the context itself alive until GC decides otherwise, which may be never. `forceContextLoss()` is the call that actually hands it back. ========================================================================== *//** * Fully release a three.js renderer. Call this in the `useEffect` cleanup of * any component that constructs a `WebGLRenderer` — the preview host drives * unmount via `<Activity mode="hidden">`, so ordinary cleanup IS the disposal * path and nothing component-specific is required. */export function disposeRenderer(renderer: THREE.WebGLRenderer | null | undefined): void { if (!renderer) return; // Stop the loop first: a queued frame that renders into a lost context // throws, and the throw escapes the cleanup function. renderer.setAnimationLoop(null); renderer.dispose(); renderer.forceContextLoss(); const canvas = renderer.domElement; if (canvas) { // Zeroing the backing store releases the drawing buffer immediately // instead of holding width×height×4 bytes until the node is collected. canvas.width = 0; canvas.height = 0; }}/** * Release a raw WebGL context (ogl, or hand-written GL). The extension is the * only portable way to do it; it is absent in some headless configurations, * hence the optional call. */export function loseContext(gl: WebGLRenderingContext | WebGL2RenderingContext | null | undefined): void { if (!gl) return; gl.getExtension('WEBGL_lose_context')?.loseContext();}/** Recursively dispose geometries, materials and textures under a root. */export function disposeObject(root: THREE.Object3D | null | undefined): void { if (!root) return; root.traverse((obj) => { const mesh = obj as THREE.Mesh; mesh.geometry?.dispose?.(); const material = mesh.material; if (!material) return; const materials = Array.isArray(material) ? material : [material]; for (const m of materials) { for (const value of Object.values(m as unknown as Record<string, unknown>)) { if (value && typeof value === 'object' && 'isTexture' in value) { (value as THREE.Texture).dispose(); } } m.dispose?.(); } });}/** * Device pixel ratio capped for fill-rate. Above 2 the visual gain is nil and * the cost is quadratic; on a 3x phone an uncapped full-screen shader is the * single most common cause of a janky first paint. */export function pixelRatio(max = 2): number { if (typeof window === 'undefined') return 1; return Math.min(window.devicePixelRatio || 1, max);}/** * Whether WebGL is actually available. Some browsers expose the constructor * but fail to create a context (blocklisted GPU, no hardware acceleration); * a component that assumes success renders a permanently blank box. */export function hasWebGL(): boolean { if (typeof document === 'undefined') return false; try { const canvas = document.createElement('canvas'); const gl = canvas.getContext('webgl2') ?? canvas.getContext('webgl') ?? canvas.getContext('experimental-webgl'); if (!gl) return false; (gl as WebGLRenderingContext).getExtension('WEBGL_lose_context')?.loseContext(); return true; } catch { return false; }}
05
API
Every parameter, its type and what happens when you change it.
Backing store size relative to the display pixel ratio. Clamped to 0.25..1.
maxDpr
number
= 2
Cap on the device pixel ratio before the render scale is applied.
gridSize
number
= 44
Grid spacing in CSS pixels. Floored at 4.
majorEvery
number
= 5
Every nth line is drawn as a major one, 1.6x the width.
lineWidth
number
= 1
Minor line width in backing-store pixels — not CSS pixels. Floored at 0.5.
glowRadius
number
= 240
Cursor glow radius in CSS pixels, at which the glow has fallen to about 11%.
baseColor
string
= '#080b12'
Darkest colour of the field.
fogColor
string
= '#1d3350'
Colour the fog lifts toward.
lineColor
string
= '#8fb6df'
Grid line colour.
glowColor
string
= '#3f7fd0'
Additive colour under the pointer.
className
string
—
Merged onto the host element via cn.
06
How it works
The technique in order, not the code in order.
01
The scale is applied through the pixel ratio: renderer.setPixelRatio(pixelRatio(maxDpr) * scale) followed by setSize(w, h, false). three then sizes the backing store to floor(w * dpr * scale) while the canvas keeps width: 100% from CSS, so one number controls the ratio and there is no second sizing path to keep in sync.
02
The achieved ratio is measured rather than assumed. setSize floors, so getDrawingBufferSize().x / cssWidth can differ from dpr * scale by up to a pixel; that measured value becomes uScale, and every length the shader treats as a CSS pixel is gl_FragCoord.xy / uScale.
03
The fog is three sines multiplied and added, then pushed through smoothstep(-0.15, 1.15, fog). It is not trying to be fbm — it is trying to contain no feature smaller than roughly a dozen pixels, which is the precondition for a bilinear upscale being undetectable.
04
The grid is drawn from abs(fract(cell - 0.5) - 0.5) * pxPerCell, which is the distance to the nearest line expressed in backing-store pixels, and a smoothstep(width - 0.5, width + 0.5, d) ramp across exactly one texel. A line specified this way is 1 / scale CSS pixels wide after the upscale: softer as the scale drops, never thinner, so it cannot fall through the sampling grid.
05
No fwidth. The grid is axis-aligned in screen space, so the derivative of the cell coordinate is a constant the shader already holds — uScale * uGridSize backing pixels per cell. Computing it directly is exact, is one multiply, and needs no derivatives extension.
06
The geometry is a single triangle with vertices at (-1,-1), (3,-1) and (-1,3). It covers the viewport with three vertices and no diagonal, so the GPU never shades the seam pixels twice as it does where two triangles of a fullscreen quad meet.
07
The pointer is smoothed by useSmoothPointer with perFrameToSmoothing(0.05), which reproduces the source's x += (target - x) * 0.05 at 60 Hz while staying frame-rate independent, and its nx/ny are flipped to GL's y-up before reaching the uniform.
Load-bearing constants
Load-bearing constants
Constant
Value
Why this number
renderScale
= 0.6
Linear, so the saving is quadratic: 0.36 of the fragments, a 64% cut, about 2.8x less fragment work. A 2560x1440 window drops from 3.7 M fragments a frame to 1.3 M. Below roughly 0.5 the grid lines start to look conspicuously soft against crisp DOM text next to them; above 0.8 there is little left to win.
MIN_SCALE
= 0.25
Floor on the prop. At 0.25 a one-texel line is already four CSS pixels wide — a third of a 44 px cell — and the grid stops reading as a grid and starts reading as a plaid.
lineWidth
= 1 backing pixel
The unit is the whole point. One texel is the finest line the buffer can actually hold; asking for one CSS pixel at 0.6 scale asks for 0.6 of a texel, which the rasteriser answers with a dashed line that crawls as the box resizes.
gridSize
= 44 CSS pixels
Authored in CSS pixels so the grid holds its apparent size when the render scale changes — the entire visual difference between 0.6 and 1.0 should be a slight softening, never a different layout.
majorEvery
= 5
A 220 px major cell. Without a second scale the grid is a flat screen door; with one it acquires depth. Its line is 1.6x the minor width, which survives the upscale as a clear hierarchy where a colour difference alone would not.
POINTER_ALPHA
= 0.05 per frame at 60 Hz
The source chose it to be slower than the eye expects, which reads as viscosity: about 330 ms to close 63% of the gap. Passed through perFrameToSmoothing so a 120 Hz display gets the same 330 ms rather than half of it.
glow exponent
= exp(-d * d * 2.2)
A Gaussian on distance normalised by the radius, so glowRadius is where the glow has fallen to about 11%. A smoothstep here would put a visible circular edge on a field that has no other edges — the one place the upscale would be caught.
grid reveal
= 0.18 + 0.82 * glow
The grid is mostly latent and the cursor develops it. At full strength everywhere it is a background; appearing under the pointer, it is a surface reacting to being touched. The 0.18 floor keeps the structure legible before the pointer arrives.
POINTER_EPSILON
= 0.0002
Under reduced motion the image is a pure function of the pointer, so frames where it has not moved are skipped entirely. The threshold is well under one pixel of an ordinary box, so no real movement is ever swallowed.
07
Behaviour
What it does about motion sensitivity, teardown and being finished.
Reduced motion
The component reads useReducedMotion itself and freezes uTime at 0 rather than stopping the render. The fog, the vignette, the grid and the cursor glow are all still drawn — none of them depends on time — so what is lost is exactly the drift and nothing else. With time constant the image is a pure function of the pointer, so the loop skips any frame in which the pointer has not moved by more than 0.0002, and a still page costs nothing beyond the empty rAF callback.
Cleanup
Nulls the stage ref, disposes the triangle geometry and the ShaderMaterial, then calls disposeRenderer for dispose + forceContextLoss + a zeroed drawing buffer, and removes the canvas from the DOM. The canvas is three's own, created inside the effect and appended per effect run, so a StrictMode remount builds a new context instead of reattaching one that was just force-lost. The pointer listener belongs to useSmoothPointer and is removed with it; sizing, visibility and the frame loop are all shared subscriptions that release themselves.
Definition of done
A soft blue fog drifting behind a faint grid, with the grid brightening into a pool under the cursor that trails a third of a second behind it. Open DevTools and the canvas element reports a backing store of 0.6 of its CSS size — the technique is verifiable, not merely claimed — while the image shows no blockiness and the grid lines stay continuous rather than dashed. Resize the window slowly: the grid keeps its 44 px spacing against the layout and never crawls. With reduced motion the fog stops drifting and everything else, cursor glow included, still works.
Pitfalls
Setting only canvas.width and forgetting the CSS size, or the reverse. Either mistake produces a canvas that is simply smaller or simply blurrier than intended; the technique is the deliberate gap between the two sizes, and both have to be set on purpose.
Putting image-rendering: pixelated on the canvas — sometimes inherited from a global rule aimed at sprite art. It replaces the bilinear upscale with nearest-neighbour and the entire effect turns into visible blocks.
Specifying line widths, glow radii or grid spacing in device pixels via raw gl_FragCoord. Everything is tuned on one machine and then renders at 0.6 of that size at 0.6 scale, and a third of it again on a 3x phone. Divide by the measured scale and author in CSS pixels.
Rendering content with fine detail at a fractional scale. Text, hairlines, high-frequency noise and hard-edged shapes all alias the moment the buffer shrinks. This technique is for soft fields, and content and scale have to be chosen together.
Listening to window.resize instead of observing the element. A sidebar opening, a font loading and reflowing, or a flex sibling changing all resize the box with no window event — and ResizeObserver also fires once on observe, which handles the initial size with no separate call.
Forgetting that resizing the canvas clears its drawing buffer. Any component that skips frames — as this one does when time is frozen — goes blank after a resize unless the resize path redraws explicitly.
Reading dpr * scale back as the achieved ratio. setSize floors the backing store, so on most box widths the real ratio is slightly lower; using the nominal value makes the grid drift by a pixel against the layout as the window changes.
Suppressing the render entirely under reduced motion. Time frozen at 0 still gives the fog, the vignette and the cursor glow, because none of them depend on it — a far better degradation than a flat colour, and the accessibility requirement is about motion, not about the image.
Assuming antialias: true helps. There is no geometric edge to sample: the only visible edges come from the fragment shader, MSAA does not see them, and the request costs a multisampled buffer of the same size as everything just saved.
Notes
The renderer is created with powerPreference: "low-power". On a laptop with switchable graphics this keeps a decorative background off the discrete GPU, which is worth more battery than the render scale itself.
renderScale and maxDpr are read from a ref inside the resize path, so changing them re-sizes the backing store without rebuilding the GL context — a render-scale slider can be dragged live.
A useful way to see the technique: set renderScale to 1 and then to 0.6 and watch the grid rather than the fog. The lines soften very slightly and nothing else about the image changes, while the fragment count falls by two thirds.
The colours are individual string props rather than an array, so a caller passing literals does not hand the effect a new identity on every render.