fluidkit

Live demo → · npm

Framework-agnostic GPU fluid simulation for the web. The sim engine (Stable Fluids on WebGL2) produces velocity/dye field textures; pluggable render modes consume them — smoky dye, flat posterized "sticker" liquid, or your own fragment shader.

Status: v0.5 — WebGL2 core with five render modes (dye, threshold, ramp, displacement, custom); pointer, ambient, programmatic, mask, and audio emitters; obstacles; React/Vue/Svelte adapters; CDN build; experimental WebGPU backend (try it).

Building with an AI coding agent? Point it at AGENTS.md — a complete guide with landing-page recipes, the liquid-vs-smoke look formula, and pitfalls.

Quickstart

npm install @dilukangelo/fluidkit

import { createFluid, threshold } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit'

const fluid = createFluid(canvas, {
  emitters: { pointer: true, ambient: { strength: 0.2 } },
  render: threshold({
    levels: [{ cutoff: 0.1, color: '#ffc7ff' }],
    background: 'transparent',
  }),
})

That's it — interactive fluid on your canvas. Omit render for the classic smoky dye look.

API

fluid.splat(x, y, dx, dy, { color: '#ffc7ff', radius: 0.25 }) // programmatic droplet, x/y in [0,1], y up
fluid.params.curl = 45                                        // all sim params live-tunable
fluid.setRenderMode(dye())                                    // swap looks at runtime
const tex = fluid.getTexture('dye')                           // raw WebGLTexture for three.js/pixi
fluid.pause(); fluid.resume(); fluid.destroy()

Sim params (all optional in createFluid options, all live-tunable via fluid.params): simResolution (128), dyeResolution (1024), curl (30), pressureIterations (20), pressure (0.8), velocityDissipation (0.2), densityDissipation (1.0), gravity (0 — set 100–400 for pours/waterfalls), wind (0), speed (1), splatRadius (0.25), splatForce (6000).

Render modes

• dye({ brightness, glow, glowRadius, background }) — classic smoky multicolor, with an optional neon halo.
• threshold({ levels, background, outline, softness, lighting }) — up to 8 posterized levels with per-level alpha, edge AA, comic/sticker outline stroke, and wet-jelly lighting (gradient-derived normal + specular).
• ramp(['#0b0212', '#c0245e', '#ffe8d6']) — gradient-map: dye density drives a color ramp.
• displacement({ source, strength, chromatic }) — the flow field distorts an image, canvas, or video with optional chromatic aberration (refraction/glass effects).
• custom({ frag, uniforms }) — your GLSL ES 3.00 fragment shader; sample uDye, uVelocity, uPressure, use uTime and texelSize.

Emitters

• pointer: true | { color, intensity, radius, dragOnly } — fixed color or palette per pointer, dye density, hover vs drag.
• ambient: true | { strength, count, colors, radius } — configurable autonomous wanderers.
• fluid.setEmitterMask(textMask('your logo'), { color, strength }) — dye pours out of any text or image mask.
• fluid.setObstacle(textMask('FLOW')) — fluid flows around the mask; letters appear as negative space.
• splat() for anything programmatic, or the onFrame(t, dt) option to drive emitters without managing your own loop.

Sim extras: gravity (pours), wind (side drift), speed (slow motion / time scale) — all live-tunable via fluid.params. autoQuality (on by default) halves dye resolution under sustained frame overruns. fluid.reset() clears the fields; fluid.screenshot() returns a PNG data URL; resizes preserve the fluid instead of flashing empty.

Framework adapters & extras

// React
import { FluidCanvas } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit/react'
<FluidCanvas render={threshold({ ... })} onReady={f => f.splat(0.5, 0.5, 0, 400)} />

<!-- Vue 3 -->
<FluidCanvas :options="{ render: ramp(['#000', '#f0f']) }" @ready="f => ..." />
<!-- import { FluidCanvas } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit/vue' -->

<!-- Svelte (action, zero deps) -->
<canvas use:fluid={{ render: dye({ glow: 1 }), onReady: f => ... }} />
<!-- import { fluid } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit/svelte' -->

<!-- Plain script tag / CodePen -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@dilukangelo/fluidkit/dist/fluidkit.iife.js"></script>
<script> fluidkit.createFluid(canvas, { render: fluidkit.dye({ glow: 1 }) }) </script>

// Sound-reactive: bass erupts from the bottom, treble sparkles on top
import { createAudioEmitter } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit/audio'
const audio = await createAudioEmitter(fluid, { source: audioElement }) // omit source = microphone

threshold({ bubbles: { density, rise, size } }) adds rising carbonation specks. Masks accept videos or live: true canvases — an animated logo that pours while it moves.

Behavior you get for free

• Pauses when the tab is hidden or the canvas scrolls off-viewport.
• Respects prefers-reduced-motion (opt out with respectReducedMotion: false).
• Recovers from WebGL context loss; resizes with the canvas; multiple instances per page; destroy() releases all GPU resources.
• SSR-safe: importing the package touches no browser globals.

WebGPU (experimental)

import { createFluidGPU, isWebGPUSupported } from '@dilukangelo/fluidkit/webgpu'

const fluid = isWebGPUSupported()
  ? await createFluidGPU(canvas, { emitters: { pointer: true } })
  : createFluid(canvas) // WebGL2 fallback

The full sim pass graph ported to WGSL compute. v0 scope: dye rendering + pointer/ambient/ programmatic splats + all live sim params (gravity, wind, speed included). Threshold/ramp/ displacement/custom modes, masks, and obstacles remain WebGL2-only for now.

Examples

The demo ships twenty looks, all driven through the public API (source in demo/main.ts — each is a copy-paste starting point):

dye smoky multicolor · threshold posterized purple · custom ink-on-paper · soda pink liquid pour · waterfall raining streams · fountain rainbow jet · goo outlined metaball cursor · aurora hover-reveal · chrome liquid iridescence · contour living topographic map · neon glowing smoke · lava gradient-map · smoke gray plume in the wind · fire flame ramp · fizz carbonated seltzer · jelly lit slime · logo melting wordmark · collide flow around invisible text · refract image distortion · hero typography over fluid

Hit tune in the demo for live sliders over every sim param + copy-config.

Develop

npm install
npm run dev    # live demo at localhost:5173 with mode switcher
npm test       # host-side unit tests (node 22.6+ / 24)
npm run build  # ESM + .d.ts to dist/

Requires WebGL2 with EXT_color_buffer_float (any non-ancient device).

MIT