Select
Pick a shape, image, text object, or group and add a curated effect from the existing Effect Studio and Object Filters surfaces.
Available Curated effects with optional GPU compute
Give pixels a point of view. Keep the design editable.
Varve’s shader effects turn print screens, optical bloom, analog signal, refracted light, and other treatments into ordinary editable effect entries. Tune the result on the selected object, then keep the recipe, order, mask, blend mode, and source content intact.
A creative workflow, not a shader playground
Choose a treatment. Adjust it. Ship the same idea.
Author
Use meaningful controls for scale, angle, origin, colors, intensity, seed, and quality. Before/After comparison keeps experiments reversible.
Export
Export uses the committed document recipe and requested bounds. The authoritative software path remains available when an optional accelerator cannot complete.
Effects for texture, optics, and signal.
Print and palette
Palette Snap and the halftone family help build screen-printed, newsprint, riso, and reduced-color looks while retaining the source.
Light and lens
Bloom, Light Shafts, Lens Flare, Light Leak, and Caustics provide controllable atmosphere with explicit intensity and spatial parameters.
Analog signal
CRT, VHS, and RGB Split keep seeds and frame parameters stable, so a repaint, pan, or reopened document does not invent a new look.
Stack and mask
Effects participate in the normal order, opacity, blend, scope, mask, history, and duplication workflows. Vector and text editability remains separate from the rendered treatment.
Acceleration is optional. The result is not.
- WebGPU or native compute
- Available to explicit asynchronous effect consumers only after the device, shader contract, and request are usable. The current interactive preview and export replay stay on the authoritative software path; diagnostics distinguish actual execution from API availability.
- Software fallback
- CPU kernels remain the compatibility path for Linux WebKitGTK, older browsers, software adapters, and device loss. The document is never held hostage by a GPU.
- Honest export
- Effects are evaluated at export quality and correct bounds. SVG/PDF preserve unaffected vector and text content, rasterizing only the dependency region that cannot be represented structurally.
- Offline-first
- Ordinary effects require no cloud compiler, model download, hidden network request, or arbitrary code execution.
Why this feels different from “turn on GPU acceleration.”
Creative tools have taught users to distrust GPU switches that cause flicker, blank canvases, corrupted color, or a frozen export. Varve keeps acceleration per operation, observes compilation and device errors, bounds its resources, and returns to the tested software implementation when a device cannot complete the request. A fallback is visible in diagnostics; it is not a silent change to the authored parameters.