ShaderBox

A desktop playground for GLSL shaders. Write a fragment shader, get an instant control panel for every uniform in it, and watch the render change as you drag.

The scene above is one shader file, shipped as an example. Every part of it - camera, building density, window warmth, traffic, fog - is a slider ShaderBox built by reading the code.

Download for Linux or Windows on itch.io

The idea

Writing a shader usually means hard-coding a constant, recompiling, squinting, changing it, recompiling again. ShaderBox removes that loop:

uniform float u_glow = 0.8;      // a drag appears
uniform vec3  u_tint_color;      // a colour picker appears
uniform sampler2D u_image;       // an image slot appears

Declare a uniform, save, and the control is there - nothing to register, no UI code to write. Ctrl+S recompiles in place, so the picture updates while you are still looking at it.

What else is in the box

• Examples to pull apart. Alt+E opens a gallery of complete shaders - the city above, a fire, a text-rendering piece. Open a copy and take it apart.
• A shader library. Call SB_fbm(...) or SB_sd_circle(...) straight from your code, no #include - SDF shapes and operators, noise, glow, and a full text stack are already there.
• Python on top of GLSL. A node can carry a script that drives its uniforms every frame, for the things a stateless shader cannot do - a physics step, an integrator.
• An AI copilot (optional, bring your own OpenRouter key). It edits your shader, the engine recompiles in-process, and the compile errors go straight back to the model - so it fixes its own GLSL instead of handing you something broken. Destructive actions wait for a confirm; any turn reverts in one click.
• Export. An image, a video, a Telegram sticker set, or straight to YouTube.
• Keyboard-first. Rebindable chords, a command palette, F1 for in-app help.

Install

Needs uv:

uv sync
uv run python ./shaderbox/ui.py

Or grab a build from itch.io - it ships as source and bootstraps itself on first launch.

Built with

Python 3.12, moderngl, glfw, and Dear ImGui via imgui-bundle.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later - use it, study it, share it, modify it; distributed derivatives stay under the same license with source available. See LICENSE.