Glass Shader Woman: A Cinematic 3D Scene

Glass Shader Woman is a cinematic 3D scene inspired by a dream I had, which later became the seed for a short story. The piece explores the feeling of encountering a translucent, almost spectral figure inside a strange atmospheric world, using real-time shaders, cursor-following deformation, camera movement and layered 3D assets to create a dreamy, glass-like visual language.

The scene combines GLSL, JavaScript, GSAP and 3D assets, using splats, GLB elements and a skybox environment. The central woman asset was sculpted by me in Blender from a base 3D model, then rigged in Blender and animated with Mixamo. The process also involved 3D asset optimization and texture optimization using a custom FFmpeg script, keeping the experience lightweight enough for the web while preserving the cinematic mood.

A custom GLSL shader creates the glass-like material and cursor-following deformation, allowing the figure and visual treatment to react subtly to user input. This added an interactive layer to the scene without turning it into a traditional interface, keeping the experience more atmospheric and cinematic.

For the environment, I created cubemaps from panoramic imagery using a panorama-to-cubemap workflow, then integrated them into the scene as part of the lighting and atmosphere. The scene is structured as a simple browser-based experience navigated through animated camera movement.

To choreograph the camera, I built a helper mode that let me position, transform, scale and rotate assets directly in the scene and move the camera through the environment. The helper logged camera steps, which I then translated into a GSAP animation sequence to create a cinematic path through the space.

GLSL, JavaScript, GSAP, 3D, Blender, Mixamo, GLB, splats, skybox, cubemaps, custom glass shader, cursor-following shader deformation, asset optimization, texture optimization, FFmpeg.