@zakkster/lite-gradient

🎬 Live Demo (SmartObserver)

https://cdpn.io/pen/debug/QwKqXKP

🌈 What is lite-gradient?

@zakkster/lite-gradient creates smooth, perceptually uniform gradients using OKLCH color space — the same space used by your browser's native CSS oklch().

It gives you:

• 🌈 N-stop OKLCH gradients (no gray dead zones unlike HSL/RGB)
• 🎯 at(t, out) — caller-owned output (zero-GC in render loops)
• 📊 sampleArray(out, count) — fill a Float32Array LUT
• 🖼️ toLinear() / toRadial() — Canvas2D gradient objects
• 🎨 toCssLinear() / toCssRadial() — CSS gradient strings
• 🎨 palette(count) — extract N CSS color strings
• 🔥 5 presets: Sunset, Ocean, Fire, Neon, Grey
• 🪶 < 2 KB minified

Part of the @zakkster/lite-* ecosystem — micro-libraries built for deterministic, cache-friendly game development.

🚀 Install

npm i @zakkster/lite-gradient

🕹️ Quick Start

import { Gradient, gradientFire } from '@zakkster/lite-gradient';

// Custom gradient
const g = new Gradient([
    { l: 0.3, c: 0.15, h: 270 },  // deep purple
    { l: 0.6, c: 0.25, h: 330 },  // magenta
    { l: 0.9, c: 0.12, h: 60 },   // warm gold
]);

// Zero-GC sampling (render loop safe)
const color = { l: 0, c: 0, h: 0 };
g.at(particle.life, color);
ctx.fillStyle = toCssOklch(color);

// Canvas gradient (setup)
ctx.fillStyle = g.toLinear(ctx, 0, 0, canvas.width, 0);
ctx.fillRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);

// CSS background
element.style.background = gradientFire.toCssLinear(135);

// LUT for particle color ramp
const lut = new Float32Array(256 * 3);
g.sampleArray(lut, 256);

📊 Comparison

⚙️ API

new Gradient(stops)

• stops: [{ l, c, h, stop? }] — OKLCH colors with optional position (0–1)

.at(t, out) — Sample into caller-owned { l, c, h }. Zero-GC.

.css(t) — Sample as CSS oklch() string (allocates — setup only)

.palette(count) — Array of CSS color strings

.sampleArray(out, count) — Fill Float32Array [l,c,h,l,c,h,...]

.toLinear(ctx, x0,y0,x1,y1, resolution?) — Canvas2D linear gradient

.toRadial(ctx, cx,cy,r, resolution?) — Canvas2D radial gradient

.toCssLinear(angle?, resolution?) — CSS linear-gradient() string

.toCssRadial(resolution?) — CSS radial-gradient() string

🧪 Benchmark

10,000 particle color lookups per frame:
  chroma.js:     Allocates Color object per sample
  lite-gradient:  at(t, out) mutates caller-owned object, zero allocation

📦 TypeScript

Full declarations included in lite-gradient.d.ts.

📚 LLM-Friendly Documentation

See llms.txt for AI-optimized metadata and usage examples.

License

MIT