Blog
Notes on engineering, design, and everything in between.
Putting a Three.js island inside a static site
The isle page downloads only its own script. The scene is computed at runtime, Three.js stays in that page's chunk, and the first HTML response carries an empty stage.
Morse code: one table, two ambiguities, three details
Morse itself is trivial; the trouble is in the details — who owns the space, how to normalise full-width dots, and how long one unit actually is.
An opponent that predicts the bounce, but not too well
A Pong opponent worth playing needs two things: an accurate prediction of where the ball lands, and a deliberate error. The first is one triangle wave; the second is redrawn on every return.
Volume without a modelling tool: triangulating an island by hand
The rock on this island is not exported from a modelling tool. It is five irregular rings stitched together at runtime, and vertex colours plus flat shading are enough to make it read as stone.
Twelve hundred instances: squeezing a garden into a few draw calls
Six hundred blades of grass, a hundred and twenty flowers, eighty-five mossy stones, forty-two shrubs. Density comes from InstancedMesh, not from cutting the count.
Lighting one scene: three lamps and a shadow map computed once
A hemisphere light for ambience, a key light for direction and shadow, a rim light to pull the island off the background — and seven point lights that only add glow.