Skip to content

No.128 · Backgrounds

Tidal Lines

Two bands of hairline waveforms drifting sideways at different speeds — a tide chart quietly breathing.

The prompt

Written for the variant you picked above: Phosphor

Make a calm section background from hairline waveforms. Generate each line as an SVG polyline (140 segments over a 1200×400 viewBox) whose y is the sum of five sines at different frequencies (0.0085–0.063) and weights (0.12–0.42 of the amplitude), each offset by the line's phase — irregular enough to look like a measured signal, not a sine wave. Arrange six lines in two bands: an upper band (top 58%) and a lower band (bottom 55%), three lines each, with decreasing amplitude (26 → 12) and opacity (0.14 → 0.08) toward the centre so the middle of the section stays open for content. Stroke them 1.25px in a single accent colour with vector-effect: non-scaling-stroke, and stretch the SVG to 200% width with preserveAspectRatio="none". Each line contains its path twice, the copy offset by the viewBox width, and its group slides −50% on a linear infinite loop — 42 to 74 seconds, every line a different speed, with alternating directions (the middle upper line and the even lower lines run in reverse), so the waves slip past one another like water. Pure CSS animation. Under reduced motion, show a single still set. Selected variant — Phosphor: Lines in #86efac (phosphor green) on pure black #000000; the eyebrow uses the line colour.

Notes

Interaction
None — ambient.
Motion
Six independent linear translate loops, 42–74s, alternating direction.
Accessibility
Entire field is aria-hidden; content sits above on its own layer. Reduced motion removes the drift.
Responsive
Bands scale with the container; the SVG height clamps between 220px and 360px per band.

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