This piece started as the homepage background for the site and turned into its own small visual instrument. The rewrite was about making the field feel calmer, denser, and more cinematic while moving the always-on motion work into the GPU.
Instead of exposing a pile of production sliders, the current version is organized around named modes. The homepage stays in Calm, while the fullscreen overlay lets you move through a curated set of states that are meant to feel distinct rather than merely different.
The shipped set is:
Calm The baseline. A restrained hero state with slow camera drift, soft depth, and enough interaction to feel alive without turning noisy.
Swirl Rotational currents fold the field inward and outward like a slow monochrome vortex.
Bloom Organic growth patterns gather into luminous clusters and then soften back into fog.
Stars The surface opens into a drifting starfield with gentle twinkle and added depth.
Tide Layered wave bands roll through the grid like a black-water swell.
Drift Loose atmospheric motion with more lateral slip than vertical drama.
Signal Scanning bands and interference patterns push the field toward something more synthetic and broadcast-like.
Lattice A sharper structural study where lines and intersections briefly assert themselves through the haze.
Orbit Concentric lanes and circular motion make the field feel as if it is revolving around an invisible mechanism.
Nebula The heaviest launch mode: deeper fog, more cloud-like clustering, and a stronger sense of depth.
There are still prototype modes in the local lab, but only the launch set ships publicly. The runtime now keeps one live scene between the homepage and overlay, blends between current and next states in shader space, and degrades quality by lowering DPR before it cuts heavier effects. That keeps the experience closer to the intended mood on iPhone Safari without giving up the gallery-like monochrome identity.