Materials & Shaders

Small World uses a flexible, physically-based rendering (PBR) foundation with a strong focus on custom shader integration.

Core materials

• StandardMaterial: The primary PBR material, based on the Cook-Torrance BRDF model. Supports color, metallic, roughness, and diffuse, normal, roughness, and emissive textures.
• PhongMaterial & LambertMaterial: Non-PBR specular and diffuse materials, for classic stylized rendering.
• BasicMaterial & WireframeMaterial: Unlit materials for wireframe debugging, UI elements, or flat stylized assets.
• GlassMaterial & FrostglassMaterial: Real-time screen-space refraction (SSR) with configurable ior, thickness, and transmission.
• SpriteMaterial: 2D/2.5D camera-facing billboards and particles.
• RetroScreenMaterial: A specialized material that mimics old CRT monitors with scanlines and chromatic aberration.

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Fluid & liquid surfaces (ADR 0013)

Per ADR 0013, Small World provides a unified architecture for liquids, split into two main families that share optimized shader chunks (liquid_gerstner_wave, liquid_worley_noise):

1. Wave family (transparent & refractive)

Driven by mathematical Gerstner wave displacement in the vertex shader and Worley-noise intersection foam in the fragment shader.

• OpenWaterMaterial: Realistic PBR ocean/water material with Gerstner waves, Fresnel reflections, and opaque depth fade for soft shorelines.
• StylizedWaterMaterial: Lightweight toon/anime water with sharp foam bands and cel-shading tint parameters.

import { Object3D, Plane, OpenWaterMaterial, Color } from "@small-world/engine";

const ocean = new Object3D("Ocean");
ocean.geometry = new Plane({
  width: 100,
  height: 100,
  widthSegments: 128, // High tessellation for Gerstner wave vertex displacement
  heightSegments: 128,
}).getGeometryData();

ocean.material = new OpenWaterMaterial({
  waterColor: new Color(0.1, 0.4, 0.6),
  deepWaterColor: new Color(0.01, 0.05, 0.2),
  speed: 1.0,
  foamDistance: 0.8,
});

this.scene.add(ocean);

2. Flow family (noise-driven & emissive-capable)

Driven by procedural noise flow and distortion on the surface, supports opaque depth-writing or translucent blending.

• FluidSurfaceMaterial: The generalized base class for flow-based liquids.
• LavaMaterial: Opaque molten rock with adjustable emissive glow intensity and thermal heat gradients.
• SlimeMaterial: Translucent, dripping toxic slime with ambient edge glow and high surface viscosity.

import { Object3D, Plane, LavaMaterial, Color } from "@small-world/engine";

const lavaPool = new Object3D("LavaPool");
lavaPool.geometry = new Plane({ width: 30, height: 30 }).getGeometryData();
lavaPool.material = new LavaMaterial({
  color: new Color(0.25, 0.03, 0.0),
  edgeColor: new Color(0.15, 0.02, 0.0),
  emissiveColor: new Color(1.0, 0.35, 0.05),
  emissiveStrength: 2.0,
  flowSpeed: 0.3,
  viscosity: 14.0,
});

this.scene.add(lavaPool);