Vortex
Logarithmic spiral arms converging on a drifting center with silk-thread glow and undulating perturbation.
What is Vortex?
Vortex draws logarithmic spiral arms converging on a centre that drifts slowly instead of staying pinned, which is what stops the shape from reading as a static pinwheel. Each arm is rendered as a soft silk thread with an undulating perturbation along its length, so the glow breathes as it rotates. Arm count, from 3 to 10, and animation speed are the live parameters, and the file accepts ?p= to render below native resolution. It requests an alpha-enabled WebGL context, so it can be layered over your own background, and it honours prefers-reduced-motion. Works well as a portal or transition motif, and behind centred hero text.
Vortex is a free WebGL web effect in the TappyPrism library. Logarithmic spiral arms converging on a drifting center with silk-thread glow and undulating perturbation. It is rendered on the GPU by a fragment shader, so it costs almost nothing on the CPU and works well as a full-screen background. It ships as a single self-contained HTML file (vortex.html) with zero dependencies — no npm package, no framework, no build step. It exposes 2 live parameters — Animation Speed, Spiral Arms — adjustable in the browser or at runtime.
Parameters
| Parameter | Key | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animation Speed | WAVE_SPEED | 0.2 – 3 | 1 |
| Spiral Arms | LINE_COUNT | 3 – 10 | 6 |
How to add Vortex to your page
- Download the standalone file vortex.html and copy its source into your project.
- Or embed it as a background iframe:
<iframe src="https://prism.tappypotato.com/fx/vortex.html" style="position:fixed;inset:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;z-index:-1" title="Vortex"></iframe> - Tune it at runtime with postMessage:
iframe.contentWindow.postMessage({ type: 'param', name: 'WAVE_SPEED', value: 1 }, '*');
Frequently asked questions
What is Vortex?
Vortex draws logarithmic spiral arms converging on a centre that drifts slowly instead of staying pinned, which is what stops the shape from reading as a static pinwheel. Each arm is rendered as a soft silk thread with an undulating perturbation along its length, so the glow breathes as it rotates. Arm count, from 3 to 10, and animation speed are the live parameters, and the file accepts ?p= to render below native resolution. It requests an alpha-enabled WebGL context, so it can be layered over your own background, and it honours prefers-reduced-motion. Works well as a portal or transition motif, and behind centred hero text. Vortex is a free WebGL web effect in the TappyPrism library. Logarithmic spiral arms converging on a drifting center with silk-thread glow and undulating perturbation. It is rendered on the GPU by a fragment shader, so it costs almost nothing on the CPU and works well as a full-screen background. It ships as a single self-contained HTML file (vortex.html) with zero dependencies — no npm package, no framework, no build step. It exposes 2 live parameters — Animation Speed, Spiral Arms — adjustable in the browser or at runtime.
How do I add Vortex to my website?
Download the standalone file at https://prism.tappypotato.com/fx/vortex.html and copy its source into your page, or embed it as a background iframe: <iframe src="https://prism.tappypotato.com/fx/vortex.html" style="position:fixed;inset:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;z-index:-1" title="Vortex"></iframe>. Tune it live with postMessage, e.g. iframe.contentWindow.postMessage({ type: 'param', name: 'WAVE_SPEED', value: 1 }, '*').