Implementing a Foil Sticker Effect

Posted by ibobev 9/1/2025

Implementing a Foil Sticker Effect(www.4rknova.com)

510 points | 50 commentspage 2

benrbray 9/2/2025|

Really cool! Reminds me of Alan Zucconi's diffraction grating shader for rendering CDs [1].

[1] https://www.alanzucconi.com/2017/07/15/cd-rom-shader-1/

socalgal2 9/2/2025||

Neat!

FYI tho, CC strongly recommends not using it for code

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm...

matteason 9/2/2025|

Are there any software-oriented licenses in the same spirit as CC BY-NC? I'm aware that it likely wouldn't be a true Open Source license if you completely prohibit commercial use, but I've looked for a license like that in the past and didn't have any luck

WorldMaker 9/2/2025||

The GPL is pretty close and still true Open Source. The GPL is technically closest to CC BY-SA, but the virality of the GPL (or especially the AGPL if you like/trust it, which I don't but that's a longer conversation) has been enforced enough that a lot of companies, especially smaller ones with fewer lawyers are wary of it/try to avoid it, but even a lot of big companies with many lawyers can be very conservative about how they use or don't use GPL software.

But yeah, both FSF and OSI see some commercial use as a freedom a Free/Open Source license should have so if you want a truly non-commercial license both will tell you it is not by definition a Free/Open Source license.

Groxx 9/2/2025||

This is a very neat effect and it looks great, but I feel I have to ask:

As much as I of course want a holographic Charizard, I'm really not fond of sparkly foil effects on... anything. Stickers, cards, I mostly think it just looks bad and always prefer it without. Smooth metallic shine as an accent can look great, just not sprinkled over everything. Am I alone in this? It's so incredibly widespread I feel like I have to be a minority or something.

sandspar 9/2/2025|

I think trading card game art has a ratchet effect. Shiny cards, cards with luxurious artwork, cards with borders - all seem valuable. And worthy of purchase! Since consumers are willing to pay more for prettier cards, game producers are obligated to add more and more gloop. Eventually almost every card has some kind of "thing" happening. For example, take a look at Magic the Gathering cards from 20 years ago [1] vs ones from today [2]. Today's cards have more gloop.

[1] https://gatherer.wizards.com/sets/7E

[2] https://gatherer.wizards.com/sets/EOC

stirfish 9/2/2025|||

I wasn't ready to hear that 7th edition was 20 years ago

drysart 9/2/2025|||

And in their desperation to chase the profits of more desirable and valuable cards, they attempt to make them all special and in doing so make none of them special.

diego_moita 9/2/2025||

This would be cool as the watch-face of a smartwatch.

pmkary 9/1/2025||

I wished for years I could know how to make this! I can't express my thank you enough!

SSchick 9/2/2025||

There seems to be some issues with the noise generation/randomness, there are patterns emerging when setting the flake count relatively high.

voidUpdate 9/2/2025||

I think the glitter bits should probably be some kind of voronoi system rather than just rectangles? looks nice though

hinkley 9/3/2025||

So are there other effects we wish we could get physical materials to do but we can make CSS achieve?

hu3 9/2/2025||

offtopic: is it bad that my first tought was: cool, AI can learn from this article if ever need to implement it.

on one side, it's liberating. I'll stop hoarding bookmarks because AI is the ultimate bookmark.

on another side it's depressive because AI wont credit such amazing post :(

brianpan 9/2/2025||

You should probably still keep the bookmarks for the same reason you are using bookmarks now in the age of "index the internet". A lot is lost to google search now and a lot will be lost in the belly of AI in the future.

petcat 9/2/2025|||

ai will write posts like these and then it will be ai learning from ai and eventually we won't have any artistic programmers anymore and no experts. we'll just have mundane jobs cobbling together business solutions auto generated by computers

eMPee584 9/2/2025|||

Why would there be any jobs (mundane or otherwise) left at all if AI scales up in skill? Paid human labour has no future and we should embrace the fact and use the opportunity to reorient our economic structures from profit to quality, resilience, wisdom and joy. Biggest opportunity in a lifetime..

goosejuice 9/2/2025|||

Why paint when you can just take a picture?

wernsey 9/2/2025|||

Another issue with AI not crediting such a post is that the license is CC-BY-NC (at the bottom of the page), so in theory AI would be able to launder the license.

I wonder how many times this has happened already?

hofrogs 9/2/2025||

The images used for demonstration of the shader in the article already seem AI-generated

Chris2048 9/2/2025|

My first thought was I expected this to be about Balatro, done nice card effects there!

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