Fake Glow Material for Vanilla Three.js

A simple-to-use Fake Glow material for threejs

Live link: https://fake-glow-material-threejs.vercel.app/

Introduction

This material enables the utilization of a 3D mesh as a GLOW effect through GLSL Shaders, all without the need for any post-processing effects.

Unlike traditional approaches using post-processing, my new React Three Fiber material employs GLSL Shaders directly for creating glow effects on 3D meshes. This method avoids the usual performance hit associated with post-processing, such as the bloom effect, making it a more efficient solution for integrating glow effects in 3D scenes.

HOW TO USE?

1: Download the Material

Create a new file with the contents of this gist on your project and save it as 'FakeGlowMaterial.js'

2: Import the material

import FakeGlowMaterial from './FakeGlowMaterial.js'

3: Add this as a material for your mesh

// ...
const geometry = new THREE.SphereGeometry();
const FakeGlowMaterial = new FakeGlowMaterial();
const Sphere = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, FakeGlowMaterial);
scene.add(Sphere);
// ...

That's all that you need to use this material. Of course, you can customize it as shown below.

This effect is mesh based, meaning that you need to provide a mesh for this to work properly

When you give it a mesh, remember that it must be smooth enough so glsl can calculate normals and create the effect. For example, for sharp meshes like a cube, you can use a sphere to simulate the glow, instead of a copy of the cube.

❌ Bad: Cube mesh for glow	✅ Good: Sphere mesh for glow

Properties

Name	Type	Default	Description
falloff	Number	0.1	Controls the falloff factor for the glow effect. Ranges from 0.0 to 1.0.
glowInternalRadius	Number	6.0	Controls the internal radius for the glow effect.
glowColor	String or Color	"#00d5ff"	Specifies the color of the glow effect. Use hexadecimal format or a `THREE.Color` instance.
glowSharpness	Number	0.5	Controls the sharpness of the glow effect. Ranges from 0.0 to 1.0.
opacity	Number	1.0	Specifies the opacity of the hologram. Ranges from 0.0 to 1.0.
side	THREE.FrontSide, THREE.BackSide, THREE.DoubleSide	FrontSide	Specifies the rendering side. Options are "THREE.FrontSide", "THREE.BackSide", or "THREE.DoubleSide". Defaults to "THREE.FrontSide".
depthTest	Boolean	false	Enables or disables depth testing. Defaults to false.

Here is an example of how you can pass these props. If you pass any of those props, the default values will be overwritten.

const fakeGlowMaterial = new FakeGlowMaterial({
    falloff: 0.2,
    glowInternalRadius: 6.0,
    glowColor: new THREE.Color("#ff0000"),
    glowSharpness: 0.7,
    opacity: 2.3,
    side: THREE.FrontSide,
    depthTest: true,
});

License

This component is an open-source creation released under the (MIT) license. While you're free to integrate and innovate with it, I would genuinely appreciate knowing when this FakeGlowMaterial sparks creativity in your projects!

Resources

Resources: Threejs, WebGL

Can you leave a star, please?

Would be really appreciated if you are willing to give me a star here on GitHub 🎉 or buy me a coffee ☕ https://www.buymeacoffee.com/andersonmancini. The money will be used to produce more content about threejs or to buy new courses.

ektogamat / fake-glow-material-threejs

readme