Glowing Effects and Scaling 60k Particles! | June 14, 2026
This Week’s Highlight
We are three-quarters of the way through the series (a big gold star if you're fully caught up hehe).
This episode is incredibly exciting because it solves a look that always felt like a total mystery to me: the glowing effect!
It turns out the formula is so simple and it mirrors a classic painting technique used centuries ago to capture light. Watch the episode to find out what the technique is!
What Inspires Me
If you've ever built a particle system in a regular p5.js sketch, you know how quickly the screen lags after adding just a few hundred shapes.
To overcome this, we have to leverage the GPU. This video provides a great example of a 3D particle system built with TSL (Three.js Shading Language) that effortlessly handles 60,000 individual spheres at 60fps.
By relying on geometry instancing and executing the spatial math concurrently on the hardware, it completely removes the traditional CPU bottleneck.
Food for Thought
Two of my favorite past-time activities: reading and listening to podcasts. So when I found The Book Club, a podcast that dives deep into the real historical context and worlds that inspired famous authors, it quickly became one of my favorites.
I highly recommend the episode on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a great reminder of what happens when we chase technical achievement without thinking through the long-term consequences.
Instead of resisting this rapid progress, how do we make sure our own skills keep pace so we stay in the driver's seat of our creative vision?
Until next week!
Patt