A React shader component library on WebGPU and Three.js TSL. This glossary holds the terms the project uses for its own concepts, so code, docs, and issues say the same thing.
Source: A component that draws its own image into a scene, such as MeshGradient or DotField. It is the thing an Effect acts on. Avoid: Base component, generator, layer
Effect: A component that acts on the image beneath it in a scene rather than drawing its own, such as Grain, Dither, or LedWall. An Effect composes over any Source or Effect mounted before it. Avoid: Overlay, post-process pass, post-process layer, filter
UV warp: An Effect's change to where the image beneath it is sampled, such as Dither's pixel snap or CursorRipple's refraction. A UV warp bends only what Sources drew. Avoid: Warp on its own, base UV transform
Input: A value that changes over time and is not drawn, such as the cursor, scroll, or canvas size. An Input is fed to a component as an animation signal. Avoid: Cursor hook, entry point, scene-level field
Position prop:
A component prop that names a point on the canvas. A component's own center is center; a point that belongs to one reaction among the component's other dials is named after the reaction, such as swellCenter. It is a position, not a cursor: the cursor is one Input you can feed it. The 'cursor' shorthand expresses that mapping without a hook, as in swellCenter="cursor".
Avoid: Cursor prop, interactive prop, entry point, focus
Reaction:
A component's response that grows toward a point and needs the component's own internals, such as LedWall's swell. A reaction exposes three props: the amount named for the reaction, where 0 turns it off, a <reaction>Radius in canvas units, and a <reaction>Center position prop.
Avoid: Interaction, cursor ability, hover effect
Cursor effect: An Effect driven by the cursor Input that works over any scene with no help from the components beneath it. CursorSpotlight and CursorRipple are two. Avoid: Interactive shader, cursor component, drop-in
Scroll push: The push a scene's cursor effects feel from a touch that scrolls the page over the canvas, at the finger and on through the fling. A scene opts in, and the page scrolls exactly as it would without it. Avoid: Hold to interact, touch drag, scroll drag
Render on demand: A scene draws every frame until its components' idle votes let it park. A parked scene does no GPU work. An Input or a prop change asks for frames only until its value settles, and the scene stays parked. An animated vote restarts the frame loop. Avoid: Idle mode, frameloop demand, static scene
Idle vote: A component's say in whether its scene may park. A component votes idle while nothing it draws can change, votes animated while anything can, or casts no vote; a scene parks only when at least one component votes idle and none votes animated. Avoid: Static hint, render-on-demand vote, static vote
Frame cap: The most frames per second a scene draws, set by its app. With no frame cap, a scene draws at the display's refresh rate, so a 120 Hz display gets 120 frames a second. Frames a prop change asks for count against the frame cap. A frame cap never wakes a parked scene or resumes a paused one. Avoid: Frame budget, target frame rate, fps limit
Paused scene:
A scene frozen on its current frame, by its app through paused, or because the tab is hidden or the canvas is off screen. Time stops while a scene is paused, so it resumes on the frame it stopped on. A parked scene stops drawing because nothing it draws can change. A paused scene stops whatever its components vote.
Avoid: Frozen scene, stopped scene
Mark:
The single figure drawn at each grid point of a pattern component such as DotField. Every mark is a coverage at a cell-local point, computed from a signed distance for a built-in mark or read from a decoded tile for a custom mark, so sizing and ripple displacement work the same for every mark.
Avoid: Glyph, symbol, icon, dot (except inside shipped identifiers such as DotField and dotSize)
Built-in mark: A mark the library ships by name, such as the circle and the cross. Its edge is an exact distance, so it stays crisp at any size. Avoid: Preset shape, default shape
Custom mark: A mark the caller supplies as inline SVG markup. Only its coverage is read, so it takes the field's color like any other mark. Avoid: Custom shape, user shape, icon
Search trigger: The button in the site header that opens the search panel and focuses its input. It is not an input itself. Avoid: Search bar, search box, search input (for the header control)
Search panel: The dialog the search trigger opens, holding the query input and the result list over the blurred page. Avoid: Search modal, search dialog, command palette
Demo: The live scene and its control panel at the top of a component page. The homepage hero turns into Aurora's demo as the page scrolls. Avoid: Editor, playground
Favorite: A component hand-picked for the homepage's favorites grid. It links to its component page. Avoid: Featured component, highlight
Card tab: The strip that cuts into a favorite's edge to show the favorite's short name, such as "Simplex" for Simplex Noise, when the card is hovered or focused. Avoid: Tab, name tab, label tab
Feature card: A card in the homepage's features section that illustrates one quality of the library, such as "Composable" or "Reactive". Unlike a favorite, a feature card shows no component. Avoid: Benefit card, value prop, pillar, featured card
Story: The animation a feature card plays when the pointer moves over it. Once started, a story always finishes, and the card returns to its still frame. Avoid: Intro, entrance, demo, hover effect
Still frame: The one frame a feature card shows whenever its story is not playing. It need not be the story's first or last frame. Avoid: End frame, rest state, poster