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Medium EffectsAnimated

Lava lamp

Three glowing blobs that drift and merge.

Play this challenge All challenges

The target picture for the shader challenge "Lava lamp" — Recreate this picture. You pass at a 99% match, then try to write it in fewer characters than the par.

How this challenge works

You write a fragment shader that draws the picture above, live in your browser. A match bar shows how close you are, and the score combines accuracy, code size (the par is 518 characters in Unity (Built-in)) and GPU speed. Work in HLSL, GLSL, WGSL, Metal or Godot and export the result when you are done.

The numbers you need

c1: float2(0.3 * sin(time * 0.7), 0.25 * sin(time * 0.9))
c2: float2(0.3 * cos(time * 0.6), 0.25 * cos(time * 1.1))
c3: float2(0.15 * sin(time * 1.3), 0.3 * cos(time * 0.5))
Field: f = sum of 0.02 / dot(p - c, p - c)
Blob: m = smoothstep(0.9, 1.1, f)
Color: lerp(float3(0.1,0.02,0.15), float3(1.0,0.4,0.3), m) + 0.1 * min(f, 1.0)

Solve it in your language

Unity (Built-in), Unity (URP), Unreal, Shadertoy / WebGL, OpenGL (LWJGL, raylib), three.js, GameMaker, LÖVE (Lua), Godot, Apple (iOS, macOS), WebGPU / Bevy.