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STARS Web
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About
The question was whether STARS could leave its CUDA workstation. Rather than port layer by layer, the web version first proved each kind of layer: per-pixel procedural, projection and hashing, a stateful simulation, a path-traced renderer, depth-based effects. With those in place the bulk of the native layers could be ported mechanically, and the web version now has more layers than the original.
Scenes are the same JSON files as the native renderer’s, loaded directly.
Features
- 01
Same architecture, in WGSL
An HDR framebuffer that every layer's compute kernel blends into, the domemaster projection, the noise library and an ACES tone map, rewritten from CUDA.
- 02
The hard cases first
The noise keystone and a stateful multi-pass simulation (reaction-diffusion with persistent buffers) were ported first. Both render correctly, the main evidence that the rest can follow.
- 03
A path tracer
35 generative surfaces including ten infinite tunnels, space deformations and booleans, 14 procedural textures, Cook-Torrance metal, glass and coat, soft shadows, ambient occlusion, global illumination, depth of field.
- 04
Depth, then effects
Raymarching layers write a shared depth buffer, which post effects read for depth of field, distance fog or a visible depth pass.
- 05
Audio-reactive
The microphone or system audio, split into bands, drives the reactive layers.
- 06
Checked without a browser
The same engine runs under Deno's WebGPU, so frames can be rendered and verified headless, in CI.
Credits
- Code — SVDK