From dcfb172704f3afb68a30425029ec834be2883274 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bt Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2024 13:22:19 -0400 Subject: More content porting, on-going markdown changes for lowdown support --- build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html | 59 ++++++++++++++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 39 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-) (limited to 'build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html') diff --git a/build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html b/build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html index 3eb02c5..d04f852 100644 --- a/build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html +++ b/build/fake-3d-elements-with-css/index.html @@ -1,70 +1,87 @@ - + Faking 3D Elements with CSS - - + + +
-

Faking 3D Elements with CSS

+

Faking 3D Elements with CSS

+

2020-04-29

+

Although not always practical, creating the illusion that some of your web elements are 3D can be a fun experiment. I set out to see if I was able to create such an illusion with only 2 HTML elements and as little CSS as possible.

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This is what I ended up creating:

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Blue 3D orb made out pure CSS

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Live CodePen Example

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The HTML

+ +

The HTML

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Prepare for your mind to be blown:

-
<div class="main-orb">
-    <div class="inner-orb"></div>
-</div>
+
+
<div class="main-orb">
+    <div class="inner-orb"></div>
+</div>
 
-

That's it - I wasn't kidding when I said we would use only 2 HTML elements. The .main-orb is the core shape (set to 400x400) and the .inner-orb is placed on top of it's parent at a slightly smaller size (360x360) - but more on that below in the CSS portion.

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The CSS

+ +

That’s it - I wasn’t kidding when I said we would use only 2 HTML elements. The .main-orb is the core shape (set to 400x400) and the .inner-orb is placed on top of it’s parent at a slightly smaller size (360x360) - but more on that below in the CSS portion.

+ +

The CSS

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First we give the bigger orb element (.main-orb) the default styling needed to represent a 2D circle:

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.main-orb {
     background: linear-gradient(#fff 0%, #eee 10%, #2E86FB 50%, #1A237E 100%);
     border-radius: 9999px;
     height: 400px;
     margin: 4rem auto;
-    position: relative; /* This is important for the inner orb element later */
+    position: relative; /* This is important for the inner orb element later */
     width: 400px;
 }
 
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Next, we include both :before and :after pseudo elements for our orb's drop shadow. You could do this with a simple box-shadow property on the .main-orb itself, but I've explained in a previous post why that's not the best approach.

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/* Shared styling for both pseudo elements - Remember DRY */
+
+

Next, we include both :before and :after pseudo elements for our orb’s drop shadow. You could do this with a simple box-shadow property on the .main-orb itself, but I’ve explained in a previous post why that’s not the best approach.

+ +
/* Shared styling for both pseudo elements - Remember DRY */
 .main-orb:before, .main-orb:after {
     border-radius: 200px 200px 9999px 9999px;
     bottom: -10px;
-    content:'';
+    content:'';
     filter: blur(20px);
     height: 40px;
     position: absolute;
     z-index: -1;
 }
-
-
/* Bigger, lighter shadow */
+
+/* Bigger, lighter shadow */
 .main-orb:before {
     background: rgba(0,0,0,0.4);
     left: 7.5%;
     width: 85%;
 }
-
-
/* Smaller, darker shadow */
+
+/* Smaller, darker shadow */
 .main-orb:after {
     background: rgba(0,0,0,0.7);
     left: 20%;
     width: 60%;
 }
 
+

With our main orb complete we can move on to the .inner-orb element to help bring slightly more depth to our floating ball of CSS:

+
.inner-orb {
     background: linear-gradient(#fff 0%, #2E86FB 60%, #283593 100%);
     border-radius: 9999px;
@@ -77,7 +94,9 @@
     width: 360px;
 }
 
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Poor-man's 3D elements

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Poor-man’s 3D elements

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Clearly implementing something like this will never come close to generating true 3D renders on a website, but it is a fun exercise to see how much further we can push simple CSS. Feel free to fork the above CodePen to play around with different colors and shadow placements.