Custom Shader Material

Extend Three.js standard materials with your own shaders!

The demo is real, you can click it! It contains full code, too. 📦

Custom Shader Material (CSM) lets you extend Three.js' material library with your own Vertex and Fragment shaders. It Supports both Vanilla and React!

import CustomShaderMaterial from 'three-custom-shader-material/vanilla'

function Box() {
  const geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry()
  const material = new CustomShaderMaterial({
    baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial,
    vertexShader: /* glsl */ ` ... `,
    fragmentShader: /* glsl */ ` ... `,
    uniforms: {
      uTime: {
        value: 0,
      },
    },
    flatShading: true,
    color: 0xff00ff,
  })

  return new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material)
}

import CustomShaderMaterial from 'three-custom-shader-material'

function Cube() {
  const materialRef = useRef()

  useFrame((state) => {
    if (materialRef.current) {
      materialRef.current.uniforms.uTime.value = state.clock.elapsedTime
    }
  })

  return (
    <mesh>
      <boxGeometry />
      <CustomShaderMaterial
        ref={materialRef}
        baseMaterial={THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial}
        vertexShader={/* glsl */ ` ... `}
        fragmentShader={/* glsl */ ` ... `}
        uniforms={{
          uTime: {
            value: 0,
          },
        }}
        flatShading
        color={0xff00ff}
        // ...
      />
    </mesh>
  )
}

Installation

npm install three-custom-shader-material
yarn add three-custom-shader-material

Output Variables

CSM provides the following output variables, all of them are optional but you MUST use these variables like you would use standard GLSL output variables to see results.

// gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewPosition * position * vec3(2.0);
csm_Position = position * vec3(2.0);

Custom overrides

You can define any custom overrides you'd like using the patchMap prop. The prop is used as shown below.

const material = new CustomShaderMaterial({
   baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial,
   vertexShader: ` ... `,
   fragmentShader: ... `,
   uniforms: {...},
   patchMap={{
      "<KEYWORD>": {        // The keyword you will assign to in your custom shader
        "TO_REPLACE":       // The chunk you'd like to replace.
          "REPLACED_WITH"   // The chunk you'd like put in place of `TO_REPLACE`
      }
   }}
})