Shader Playground
A full real-time GLSL development environment built into DASCA. Write shaders, control uniforms with sliders, and animate them using a keyframe timeline with advanced curve support.
Keyframe timeline
Animate any float or int uniform over time with a full keyframe timeline. Six easing types — including a Bézier curve editor with draggable tangent handles — and a graph editor modelled after standard compositing tools.
Real-time GLSL editing
Write vertex and fragment shaders directly against your loaded media. Play mode auto-compiles after a 500 ms debounce. Stop mode runs syntax-only validation so you can make large edits without intermediate stutters.
Custom texture input
Eight slots are displayed as small tiles below the canvas. Click an empty tile to open a file picker and load an image or video. Click a filled tile to remove it. Both static images and videos are supported.
Shader library
Save shaders with an auto-captured 128 × 128 thumbnail. Browse, search, rename, delete, and export the full library to a JSON file. Import from another installation. No account required — everything stays local.
Video recording
Record canvas output directly to WebM & MP4. Choose 24, 30, or 60 fps and a bitrate of 2, 5, or 10 Mbps. Pause and resume mid-recording. Preview the clip before saving. Timeline animation is captured in the output. Offscreen rendering supported.
Why not just use ShaderToy?
Free tools are great for exploration. DASCA is for when you need to actually ship something.
Keyframe Timeline
Animate any shader uniform over time on a curve. Brightness, frequency, distortion. All of it keyframeable. ShaderToy simply can't do this.
Local Files + GPU Performance
Your files stay on your machine. Full GPU access means no 4K tab crash, no upload wait, and high-bitrate video export output.
Unified Workflow
Images, 3D scenes, and video in one app. Not four browser tabs. Not a plugin chain. One tool, one export button.
| DASCA | ShaderToy | p5.js | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GLSL editor | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Keyframe timeline | ✓ | — | — |
| Local file access | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| No subscription | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Works offline | ✓ | — | ✓ |
How it works
01
Open the editor
Press the playground icon on the topbar to open the playground.
02
Write your shader
Edit the fragment shader. The engine auto-compiles while you type. Custom uniforms appear as sliders and toggles below the editor the moment they are declared.
03
Animate and export
Add keyframes to any uniform in the Timeline panel to animate it over time. Record the output to a WebM & MP4 file, or press Ctrl + Shift + S for a still frame.