# three-custom-shader-material > Extend Three.js standard materials with your own shaders! Latest version **6.4.0** (published 2025-10-12) · MIT license · 0 weekly downloads ## Install ```sh npm install three-custom-shader-material pnpm add three-custom-shader-material yarn add three-custom-shader-material bun add three-custom-shader-material ``` ## Health **Score 55/100 (C)** — status: stable. Positive: has types; esm support; no vulnerabilities. Warnings: low downloads. ## Facts | | | |---|---| | Version | 6.4.0 | | Published | 2025-10-12 | | First published | 2020-08-17 | | Weekly downloads | 0 | | License | MIT | | TypeScript types | bundled | | Module format | ESM + CommonJS | | Dependencies | 0 | | Unpacked size | 141.7 KB | | Known vulnerabilities | 0 | | Install scripts | no | | Maintainers | farazshaikh | ## Links - npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/three-custom-shader-material - Homepage: https://github.com/FarazzShaikh/THREE-CustomShaderMaterial - npm.io page: https://npm.io/package/three-custom-shader-material ## Recent versions - 6.4.0 (latest) — 2025-10-12 - 6.0.0-rc.12 (next) — 2024-09-21 - 6.3.7 — 2025-05-23 - 6.3.6 — 2025-05-08 - 6.3.5 — 2025-04-14 - 6.3.4 — 2025-04-14 - 6.3.3 — 2025-04-14 - 6.3.2 — 2025-04-14 - 6.3.1 — 2025-02-23 - 6.3.0 — 2025-01-31 - 6.2.1 — 2024-12-22 - 6.2.0 — 2024-11-21 - 6.1.1 — 2024-11-01 - 6.1.0 — 2024-11-01 - 6.0.13 — 2024-10-06 - … 95 more at https://npm.io/package/three-custom-shader-material/versions ## README

Custom Shader Material

Extend Three.js standard materials with your own shaders!

These demos are real, you can click them! They contains full code, too. More demos here! 📦

Custom Shader Material (CSM) lets you extend Three.js' material library with your own Vertex and Fragment shaders. **_It Supports both Vanilla and React!_**

Show Vanilla example

```js import CustomShaderMaterial from "three-custom-shader-material/vanilla"; function Box() { const geometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(); const material = new CustomShaderMaterial({ baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial, vertexShader: /* glsl */ ` ... `, // Your vertex Shader fragmentShader: /* glsl */ ` ... `, // Your fragment Shader // Your Uniforms uniforms: { uTime: { value: 0 }, ... }, // Base material properties flatShading: true, color: 0xff00ff, ... }); return new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material); } ```

Show React example

```jsx import CustomShaderMaterial from 'three-custom-shader-material' function Cube() { const materialRef = useRef() useFrame((state) => { if (materialRef.current) { materialRef.current.uniforms.uTime.value = state.clock.elapsedTime } }) return ( ) } ```

Show Vue (Tresjs) example

> Moved to [Cientos' Docs](https://cientos.tresjs.org/guide/materials/custom-shader-material.html#trescustomshadermaterial)

## Installation ```bash npm install three-custom-shader-material yarn add three-custom-shader-material ``` ## Output Variables CSM provides the following output variables, all of them are optional but you MUST use these variables like you would use standard GLSL output variables to see results. | Variable | Type | Description | Available In | Notes | | --------------------------------- | ------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |

Vertex Shader

Fragmet Shader

Fragmet Shader (Special)

| - | - | - | - | | csm_DepthAlpha | `float` | Custom alpha for `MeshDepthMaterial`. | Fragment Shader | Useful for controlling `customDepthMaterial` with same shader as the shader material. | | csm_UnlitFac | `float` | Custom mix between `csm_DiffuseColor` and `csm_FragColor`. | Fragment Shader | Can be used to mix lit and unlit materials. Set to `1.0` by default if `csm_FragColor` is found in shader string. | ## Bump mapping Bump mapping was removed in v6.4.0. This is becasue it cannot be implimented with a singular clean output variable. You can still impliment bump mapping by using `csm_FragNormal` output variable. See the [Bump example](https://farazzshaikh.github.io/THREE-CustomShaderMaterial/#/bump) for a full working example. ## Typing CSM infers prop types based on the `baseMaterial` prop. However, if this does not work for what ever reason, you can pass your base material type as a generic to `CustomShaderMaterial`. ```ts // Vanilla const material = new CustomShaderMaterial({ baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial, //...Any props }); // React baseMaterial={THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial} //...Any props ``` ### Typing React Refs You can type the ref of `CustomShaderMaterial` as follows: ```tsx // NOTE: import from /vanilla module import CSM from "three-custom-shader-material/vanilla"; import { MeshPhysicalMaterial } from "three"; const ref = useRef>(null!); ``` ## Custom overrides You can define any custom overrides you'd like using the `patchMap` prop. The prop is used as shown below. ```js const material = new CustomShaderMaterial({ baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial, vertexShader: ` ... `, fragmentShader: ... `, uniforms: {...}, patchMap={{ "": { // The keyword you will assign to in your custom shader "TO_REPLACE": // The chunk you'd like to replace. "REPLACED_WITH" // The chunk you'd like put in place of `TO_REPLACE` } }} }) ``` > Note: If `` is not found in shader string, the patch map will not be applied. To ALWAYS apply a patch map, use the special keyword - `*` (star). > > ```js > patchMap={{ > "*": { "TO_REPLACE": "REPLACED_WITH" } > }} > ``` ## Extending already extended materials CSM allows you to extend other CSM instances. Values set in the first shader will affect the next. > Note: Extending of other materials that use `onBeforeCompile` may or may not work depending on if the default `#includes` are mangled.

Show Vanilla example

```js import CustomShaderMaterial from "three-custom-shader-material/vanilla"; function Box() { const material1 = new CustomShaderMaterial({ baseMaterial: THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial, //...Any props }); const material2 = new CustomShaderMaterial({ baseMaterial: material1, //...Any props }); } ```

Show React example

```jsx import CustomShaderMaterial from "three-custom-shader-material"; import CustomShaderMaterialImpl from "three-custom-shader-material/vanilla"; function Cube() { const [materialRef, setMaterialRef] = useState(); return ( <> {materialRef && ( )} ); } ```

### Gotchas - `csm_Position` **MUST** be a non-projected vector. i.e., no need to multiply `projectionMatrix` or `modelViewPosition` with it. If you require projection, use `csm_PositionRaw`. - Instancing must be handled manually when using `csm_PositionRaw` by multiplying in `instanceMatrix` into your projection math. - When extending already extended material, variables, uniforms, attributes, varyings and functions are **NOT** scoped to the material they are defined in. Thus, you **WILL** get redefinition errors if you do not manually scope these identifiers. - Extending of other materials that use `onBeforeCompile` may or may not work depending on if the default `#includes` are mangled. - When using an instance of CSM as the baseMaterial, or chining multiple CSM instances, or when extending any material that uses `onBeforeCompile` the injection order is as follows: ```glsl void main() { // shader A // shader B // shader C // shader D // original shader } ``` Where A was the first in the chain. - Cache key calculation takes into account base material's cache key. Useful for propagating changes across multiple chained CSM instances. - If you find yourself lost in a patchMap, it's often simpler to just make a `ShaderMaterial` with the necessary `#includes`. ## Performance With v6, CSM's initialization cost is now negligible 🥳 Still, a couple important notes about performance: - Changing these props will rebuild the material - `baseMaterial` - `fragmentShader` - `vertexShader` - `uniforms` - `cacheKey` - CSM uses ThreeJS's default shader program caching system. Materials with the same cache key, will use the the same shader program. - `` and `` are the same, and will use the same cached shader program. The default cache key is such: ```js (cacheKey?.() || hash((vertexShader || "") + (fragmentShader || ""))) + baseMaterialCacheKey?.(); ``` You can provide your own cache key function via the `cacheKey` prop. > Note: CSM will only rebuild if the **reference** to the above props change, for example, in React, doing `uniforms={{...}}` means that the uniforms object is unstable, i.e. it is re-created, with a **new** reference every render. Instead, condsider memoizing the uniforms prop `const uniforms = useMemo(() -> ({...}));`. The uniforms object will then have the same refrence on every render. > If the uniforms are memoized, changing their value by doing `uniforms.foo.value = ...` will not cause CSM to rebuild, as the refrence of `uniforms` does not change. ## License ``` MIT License Copyright (c) 2024 Faraz Shaikh Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. ``` --- _Source: https://npm.io/package/three-custom-shader-material · Machine-readable twin of the npm.io package page. Health data is recomputed on every publish._