# A Wave Becomes a Mountain — `woodblock-wave@1.0.0`

A clawed indigo wave unrolls into a snow-capped mountain: foam becomes snow and boats settle into a forest below a mineral-red sun. Woodblock print in motion.

A Japanese-style woodblock print on washi paper with a soft unprinted border. A towering indigo wave with clawed foam fingers, carved contour lines and a few small boats slowly unrolls and reshapes into a snow-capped mountain. The foam becomes snow, the boats settle into a forest, and the mineral-red sun stays where it is. Imperfect pigment transfer and paper grain keep the print feel. It is a one-shot film that ends on the mountain. The film has no settings.

- Kind: background; status: published; digest sha256:871426fe50840642146136ccbbbe26223478e99d9c96a8b239242f4c117fc903
- Role: Shader film (three.js): Japanese woodblock print, a finished 8-second portrait film with no settings.
- Implementation: three; entry `src/woodblock-wave.js`
- Files: https://aipixelwizard.com/registry/woodblock-wave/1.0.0/<path> (`LICENSE`, `asset.json`, `demo.js`, `index.html`, `src/woodblock-wave.js`)
- Manifest JSON: https://aipixelwizard.com/api/v1/visuals/woodblock-wave/versions/1.0.0
- Runnable demo: https://aipixelwizard.com/registry/woodblock-wave/1.0.0/index.html (open over http; it imports sibling packages by relative path)
- Dependencies (exact): `three@0.185.1` (source) — Renderer and a full-screen shader material.; `apw-runtime@1.0.0` (demo) — Demo harness.

## Exports
- `createWoodblockWave() => { scene, camera, setSize(width, height), update(time), dispose() }` — The film as one full-screen shader; render its scene with its camera straight to the canvas.

## Composition
- Inputs: The time in seconds, 0 to 8. The film has no other settings.
- Outputs: An opaque full-frame picture, already in display colours: render it straight to the canvas.
- Coordinates: Composed for a 4:5 portrait frame and measured by the frame height: in a wider frame the picture stays centred at full height and its background fills the sides; in a narrower one, such as 9:16, the sides are cropped.
- Lighting: None: flat carved-print colour with imperfect pigment transfer.
- Timing: The wave holds, unrolls and reshapes into the mountain; foam becomes snow and the boats settle into a forest.
- Works with: —
- The wave and the mountain are continuously morphing hand-designed outlines, not a cross-fade.
- Played on repeat it cuts from the mountain back to the wave.
- Every pixel is a function of the time alone, so frames can be rendered in any order.

## Output and loop
- 1080×1350, 30 fps, 8 s, procedural
- Seamless loop: no — A one-shot film: it builds to a finished picture that holds to the last frame, so the end does not return to the start.
- Verified 2026-10-10 in Chrome 154.0.8037.97 headless on Linux 7.0.0-38-generic (x64), Node 22.14.0 (WebGL 2 via SwiftShader (software)); deterministic: yes

## Use it
New project: Create a WebGLRenderer on a canvas (no antialiasing), call createWoodblockWave() once and film.setSize(width, height); then for each frame call film.update(timeInSeconds) and renderer.render(film.scene, film.camera).

Existing project: Copy src/woodblock-wave.js, which needs only three. Render film.scene with film.camera into your own canvas or render target; the output is opaque and already in display colours, so use no tone mapping or colour conversion.

Reuse ideas:
- Travel promo: wave to mountain makes a ready-made two-image story.
- Transformation metaphor: change comes in one continuous shape-shift, with no cut.
- Print poster: the mountain frame at the end is a finished still.

## Limitations
- The film is finished: it has no settings. To change colours or timing, edit the shader.
- It is composed for a 4:5 portrait frame.
- The end does not return to the start, so repeating it is a hard cut.

## License
MIT. Copyright (c) 2026 AI Pixel Wizard. Released under the MIT License. See LICENSE in this folder.

Provenance: From the owner's collection Twenty Impossible Worlds: the original GLSL ES 3.00 shader of the film “A Wave Becomes a Mountain”, created with ChatGPT / Codex and used as published, wrapped for AI Pixel Wizard as a three.js full-screen shader in October 2026. The collection's synthesised soundtrack is not part of this ingredient.