Plasma Bloom
Three fields multiplied rather than added, so light appears only where all three agree and most of the frame stays dark.
The scene in this preview is the file shown here. The surrounding demo shell only provides context and is not part of the copied code.
"use client";
import * as React from "react";
import * as THREE from "three";
/**
* Plasma Bloom — light only where three layers agree.
*About this effect
For a screen someone leaves open — a long job, a model running, a sync in progress. The reason most plasma backgrounds look cheap is arithmetic: they add their layers together, and a sum is bright almost everywhere, because every layer contributes at every pixel. The field never gets out of its own way, and what arrives is an even glow with no structure, which is precisely the look people mean when they say something looks generated. This multiplies instead. Three fields at different scales, each mostly near zero, and a product that only rises where all three happen to be high at once — and coincidence is rare, so most of the frame stays dark and the glow arrives in a few places with real edges. Neither the dark nor the bright spots are placed; both are what a product does and a sum cannot. Everything else follows from that one choice: because the field is mostly dark it can carry a strong colour without shouting, and text can sit on it without a scrim over most of the frame, which is what makes it usable behind a screen that stays open for ten minutes.
Related effects
- Aurora CurtainRays that arrive where a sampled sheet folds end-on, so no line of code decides where a ray belongs.
- Molten MirrorA four-number room sampled through a bent view direction, so every highlight is a reflection rather than a painted one.
- Silk SheenBrightness taken from thread direction rather than position, so the highlight moves because the cloth turned.