Graphics, Python and OpenGL
winliqglass
Apple's Liquid Glass material on Windows. Shapes act as lenses, joined by a smooth-min field, and bend the background at the rim with spectral dispersion and specular highlights.
- 8
- Wavelength taps recombined for the spectral edge.
- 2
- Render passes, so glass samples the scene underneath it.
- 0
- Frost by default. The rim does the work.
The material
Frost defaults to zero. Heavy backdrop blur makes a render read as fogged plastic, so the rim does the work: a hairline highlight, a narrow bevel and a clear interior.
The renderer makes two passes, so knobs and toolbar glass sample the scene beneath them instead of sitting on a flat overlay. Rounded rectangles are superellipses, because curvature that ramps up out of a straight edge avoids the visible step an arc makes at its tangent point.
Try the lens
Lens
A small model of the rim behaviour: magnification in the middle, compression toward the edge and the three colour channels pulled slightly apart. Move it with the pointer.
What the shader does
- LensingA circular thickness profile over a narrow SDF band bends light outward at the rim hard enough that the distant background folds into visible compression rings, while the interior stays clear.
- Spectral edgeEight wavelength taps are recombined through a narrow RGB response, with the chromatic part of the residual amplified on its own so the fringe saturates without ringing on high-contrast edges.
- Light pipeA filleted edge traps light, couples it in near the silhouette and runs it around the outline, separating the wavelengths further at every bend.
- RecordingScripted sessions render straight to MP4, headless.