Raking Marble Field
Procedural marble computed once on the GPU: almost blank at rest, its veins and etched relief appear only where a low light rakes across the stone from the pointer.
- Category
- Backgrounds
- Added
- 2026-09-26
- Deps
- none
- Updated
- 2026-09-26
This is a viberdy Pro component
The live preview, the props panel and the write-up are open to everyone. The full source, the AI prompt and CLI install are part of Pro.
Sculpture & Works of Art
The Marble Room
Props
"use client";
import { useEffect, useRef } from "react";
import type { ReactNode } from "react";
/**
* RakingMarbleField — polished stone that only shows its veins in the light.
*
* A marble slab is computed once on the GPU (veins, their soft clouds, a fine
* grain and a shallow relief where the veins are etched into the polish) and
* kept in a texture. At rest the slab is almost blank: the veins sit a few
* per cent off the ground colour, the way honed stone reads across a room.
* Bring the pointer over it and a low light rakes across the surface from
* where the pointer is: the veins darken, the relief catches on the side
* facing away from the light, and a faint sheen sits in the polish. Take the
* pointer away and the stone goes quiet again.
*
* Why a raking light: conservators and photographers light stone and
// ---------------------------------------------------------------
// Full source available with a viberdy Pro subscription.
// https://viberdy.dev/pricing
// ---------------------------------------------------------------
}About this background
Stone is lit from a low angle when conservators want to see it, because light from the front flattens everything. This background works the same way. A slab of marble is computed once on the GPU, with main veins bent by a warp, finer veins crossing them in patches, soft grey drifts and veins sitting in shallow grooves in the polish, and kept in a texture. At rest it barely shows: the veins sit a few per cent off the ground, the way honed stone reads across a room, so type set on it stays clean. Bring the pointer over it and a light a little above the surface follows: flat at its centre, raking at its edge, so the veins darken and the grooves catch in a ring around the pointer, then the stone goes quiet when you leave. Carrara, Calacatta or Nero; vein size, relief, rest visibility, light radius and the slab itself are props. Each frame is one texture read, drawn only while the light moves.
Curator’s note
Part of the Neoclassical kit, drop 3, phase 7: the signature surface. Pro because it is real rendering: a two-pass WebGL2 shader that bakes a procedural slab into a texture and relights it under the pointer.
Pairs well with
Matched on shared tags and category — the entries most likely to be used alongside this one.
Marbled Endpaper
backgroundsPaper marbling computed live on a canvas: two inks on unbleached paper, combed slowly into veins, with the pointer as the stylus and one accent drop the reader places by clicking.
Window Light Drift
backgroundsAfternoon sun through a window, crossing a plaster wall over ninety seconds — and your pointer casts a shadow in it.
Ink Fluid Field
backgroundsA real Navier–Stokes fluid simulation on the GPU: your pointer drags luminous ink through dark water, and slow currents keep it alive when nobody is touching it.