The results are in! We’re excited to share the results of the Shadertoy contest organized by Hackforge in August and September 2026.
For background, Shadertoy is a convenient web-based platform which allows people to easily write and share GLSL fragment shader code. Rather than act like a full 3D application engine, Shadertoy is for demonstrating fragment shaders that execute in screen space and take a limited set of inputs. Don’t be put off by these limitations! Rather, it’s an opportunity to embrace your creative side and technical problem solving in ways you might not normally.
If you missed it, don’t worry. You can read all about the contest format and details here: https://www.hackf.org/shadertoy-contest/
We are happy to share we had a total of 12 submissions across the 3 categories: General, Code Golf, and Challenge. These submissions came from 7 different people, with many different visual themes and approaches.
Winners
We awarded a prize to the winner of each of the three categories.
General Category – “Glowing Mask” by Mackenzie
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ffGXzG
For the extra observant: this looks to me like an homage to a popular game franchise you might recognize!
There are some really interesting things happening in this demo, particularly around procedural geometry. At a glance, it may look like a low-poly mesh. It can’t be, since Shadertoy doesn’t expose the ability to upload such things nor is there a triangle rasterization pipeline. But of course, it’s a clever optical illusion, and the way the mask subtly moves around really sells it.
Despite appearances, the application of 3D geometry is not in the foreground, but in the background. The soft glowing fire effects use some properties of simulated light through 3D space. And then the animated lightning on the mask is a subtle and nice touch. Great job, Mackenzie!
Code Golf Category – “Sierpinski Carpet Waves” by Josh
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/7cGSDG
This code is dense, and yet, the effect is extremely cool! Clocking in at around 221 characters after comments are removed, this expresses a really visually interesting pattern in a compact way. The central idea is the Sierpinski carpet pattern, a fractal that’s suitable for rendering on the GPU because the pixels can be evaluated in parallel.
Sometimes, when you’re testing a 3D application and quickly need a texture, but binding a new one would add too much complexity, it’s tempting to create a quick something procedurally. How fancy it would be if you pulled out something like this!
This has all the tried-and-true compaction approaches, like using short variable names and minimizing the use of intermediates. Still, with the help of Josh’s comments, the shader is readable and you can follow along. And for extra visual flavour, there’s an animated colour effect. Excellent work, Josh!
Challenge Category – “Rainbow in a Heart” by Phyllesha
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/fcyXzG
There are so many interesting aspects to this demo. First, there’s procedural geometry for a heart shape, expressed in a really efficient way as a function evaluating coordinates on a Cartesian system that’s symmetric across the Y axis. The result is a really smooth heart shape. The geometry is parameterized to allow for a cool animation, and is drawn multiple times as concentric shapes in a rainbow colour motif according to the Challenge category requirement.
The heart is animated to look like it’s beating, and there’s a subtle changing of colour in the background to red. All told, it reminds me of, say, a really polished UI element one might see on e.g., an 8th console generation video game. There ‘s a special kind of artistry that joins up so well to the technical attention to detail behind this. Fantastic job, Phyllesha!
Entry Showcase
It was truly amazing seeing what everyone came up with. See more submitted shaders below!
Title: Swirling Colour Shadow
Submitted by: Randy
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/fcVSDG
Title: City of Windsor Service Heatmap
Submitted by: John
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/fcVSDG (original)
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/7cVXR3 (low spec)
We noticed someone posted a comment on the Shaderoy site for this one 🙂
Title: rainbowsun
Submitted by: Fred
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NfGXzy
Title: Interactive Mandelbrot Splitzoom
Submitted by: Josh
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/7ctXWX
Title: Psychedelic Sun Rays
Submitted by: Josh
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NftXW8
Title: The Pyramid
Submitted by: Mackenzie
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/NcyXzG
Title: HelloHackforge
Submitted by: Claire
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/333cWS
Title: Example for Challenge B
Submitted by: Claire
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/scKGDW
Title: Gordie Howe Bridge
Submitted by: Claire
Link: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/f3dGDj
Thank you
A huge thank you to all participants and those who took the time to write some shader code for this contest!
We were so impressed with the level of creativity, problem-solving and technical ability everyone showed. It was a pleasure reviewing all the entries and taking the time to learn about all the different ways people approached the contest. This was also a nice opportunity to come together, compare experiences and share what everyone built. We were so happy to host a fun contest like this one. Stay tuned for more fun Hackforge events!