Skip to content

No.136 · Cursors

Watchful Ball

Round characters whose eyes sit on the sphere: they follow the pointer with real foreshortening, blink, squint up close and get dizzy if you circle them.

The prompt

Written for the variant you picked above: Tangerine

Build an SVG character whose eyes follow the pointer as if they were painted on a ball. The ball is a circle with a soft radial shade, a highlight and a contact shadow; each eye is a point on the unit sphere (x0 = ±0.3, y0 = −0.16, z0 = √(1 − x0² − y0²)). The pointer's offset from the ball sets a target yaw (up to ±0.95 rad) and pitch (±0.75), eased with a 0.12 lerp; every frame rotate each eye point — x1 = x0·cos(yaw) + z0·sin(yaw), z1 = −x0·sin(yaw) + z0·cos(yaw), y2 = y0·cos(pitch) − z1·sin(pitch), z2 = y0·sin(pitch) + z1·cos(pitch) — and place it at translate(50 + x1·R, 50 + y2·R) scale(0.35 + 0.65·z2, …). An eye heading for the rim moves less and narrows: foreshortening is what makes the flat circle read as round. Pupils lean a little further the same way, and the highlight slides opposite the turn so the ball seems to roll. Life: each ball blinks every 2.6–6.4s (close 70ms, open 120ms); eyes squint to 55% when the pointer comes within 1.4 radii; and if you circle a ball more than two full turns within about 1.6s its pupils turn into spinning spirals for 2.2s. Three balls of different sizes share one scene, all watching the same pointer (tracked on window, so they look at you even outside the frame). The loop sleeps between blinks when nothing moves. Selected variant — Tangerine: Tangerine balls (#ff7a2f shading to #c2410c) with white eyes and near-black pupils on a warm cream page (#f6efe3).

Notes

Interaction
Move anywhere and the balls look at your pointer; come close and they squint; circle one quickly and it gets dizzy.
Motion
Yaw/pitch lerp 0.12, squint lerp 0.2, blink 190ms every 2.6–6.4s, dizzy spin for 2.2s.
Accessibility
The scene is one role="img" with a description; the balls are aria-hidden. Reduced motion follows the pointer directly and stops blinking.
Responsive
Ball sizes are in vmin/container units, so the trio keeps its composition at any size.
On touch
Touch drags steer the gaze; lifting the finger sends the eyes back to centre.

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components