Bioluminescent Flow

A field of glowing bioluminescent algae simulated on the GPU. Move your hand through it, tracked live by webcam, and the particles brighten and scatter, the light rippling around your fingers, like dragging your hand through real bioluminescent plankton in dark water.

Three.js with GPUComputationRenderer, so the whole simulation runs as a GPU particle system in compute shaders, with custom glow and rim shaders on top. Thousands of points respond in real time. The hand is read from the webcam by MediaPipe HandLandmarker.

Inspired by my actual experience in 2021 of seeing bioluminescent algae for the for the first time off the coast of karnataka, this piece wants to capture that magical feeling. In playtests its been amply clear that people don't need instructions when the interaction feels natural and intuitive.