| name | rgb-effect-design |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| description | This skill should be used when creating, modifying, or debugging RGB lighting effects for Hypercolor or LightScript-compatible engines. Triggers on "create an effect", "write a lighting effect", "design LED colors", "fix washed out colors", "port a shader to LEDs", "why does this look bad on LEDs", "color palette for RGB", "effect looks white", "colors too bright", "effect flickering", "design a palette for keyboard", "LED animation", or any work involving HTML canvas effects, LED color science, gamma correction, or the Hypercolor SDK effect pipeline. |
RGB Effect Design for LED Hardware
Practical guidance for creating high-quality lighting effects on physical RGB LEDs — keyboards, strips, fans, and other addressable hardware. Derived from analysis of 210+ community effects and LED color science research.
Core Principle
LEDs are discrete point light sources separated by physical space. There is no sub-pixel blending, no backlight diffusion. Design with bold strokes, high saturation, and low spatial frequency.
Color Rules
Saturation: High or Nothing
LED hardware rewards binary saturation. Use 85-100% for vivid colors, 0% for intentional white. Avoid the 20-70% range — it produces muddy, indistinct results on RGB LEDs without a dedicated white channel.
Blowout Prevention
Keep the whiteness ratio below 0.3:
whiteness_ratio = min(R, G, B) / max(R, G, B)
- Never run all three channels above 200/255 unless white is intended
- HSL lightness above 60% washes out to white on LEDs
- For vivid colors, at least one RGB channel should be near 0
Hue Quality
| Tier | Hues | Notes |
|---|
| 1 (best) | Red(0), Green(120), Blue(240), Cyan(180), Magenta(300) | Single die or clean mix |
| 2 | Orange(25), Purple(270), Rose(330), Azure(210), Amber(35) | Excellent with tuning |
| 3 | Yellow(60), Warm White, Pastels | Tend to wash out |
| 4 | Brown, Gray | Impossible in isolation |
Safe vivid range: 180-330 (cyan through magenta). Danger zone: 30-90 (orange through yellow-green).
Fixing Yellow
Never use pure yellow (255,255,0) — shift to gold (255,190,0) or amber (255,140,0) by pulling green below red.
Color Spaces
| Task | Use | Why |
|---|
| Hue cycling / rainbow | HSV | Increment H; fast and clean |
| Gradients between colors | Oklab | No muddy midpoints |
| Palette generation | OKLCH | Equal perceptual weight across hues |
| Brightness control | HSV (V channel) | Maps to LED PWM |
| Internal blending | Linear RGB or Oklab | Never blend in sRGB |
Do not use HSL for LED work. Its lightness model causes yellow to appear 6x brighter than blue at equal L values.
Patterns That Work on LEDs
High success: Sine plasma, expanding rings, particle systems, noise fields (simplex/Perlin), linear/radial gradients, wave sweeps, Voronoi cells, metaballs.
Fail on LEDs: Bloom/glow post-processing, ray marching, film grain, fine fractals, thin lines, text rendering. Detail below ~3 LED widths is wasted.
Animation Techniques
Trail/Fade (The Universal Technique)
ctx.fillStyle = "rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15)";
ctx.fillRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
- 0.05-0.10: long trails (comets)
- 0.10-0.20: standard (most effects)
- 0.20-0.40: snappy (reactive effects)
Timing
- Ambient: 1-3s transitions
- Breathing: 2-4s cycle, sinusoidal easing
- Reactive: 50-100ms onset, 300-500ms decay
- Minimum transition: 200ms (below = flicker)
Always Use Delta-Time
const dt = (performance.now() - lastTime) / 1000;
position += velocity * dt;
Composition
- Use darkness: 30-50% of LEDs off or very dim often looks better than everything lit
- Color count: 1-2 coordinated colors > rainbow everything. Max 3-4 for tasteful results
- Hot spots: Single bright LED surrounded by dim ones creates intentional focal points
- Spatial frequency: Waves should span 10-20+ LEDs minimum
Gamma Correction
Mandatory for quality LED output. Apply as the last step after all color math.
corrected = 255 * (input / 255) ^ 2.2
Perceptual 50% brightness = PWM 55/255 (21.6%), not 128/255.
Rendering Model
The Hypercolor engine renders at 640x480 by default (user-configurable in Settings → Rendering). Effects use Canvas 2D with requestAnimationFrame and must always read ctx.canvas.width / ctx.canvas.height on every frame — never hardcode dimensions. The SDK ships a scaleContext(canvas, designBasis?) helper for effects authored against a fixed coordinate system (pass { width: 320, height: 200 } if you're porting an effect designed at the historical SDK grid). Higher canvas resolutions give smoother gradients that survive downsampling to LED positions.
Use globalCompositeOperation = 'lighter' for additive blending of overlapping light sources.
Hypercolor Engine Pipeline
Effect Canvas (sRGB u8) -> Spatial Sampling -> polish_sampled_color() -> fade_to_black -> USB output
polish_sampled_color() boosts chroma in Oklch space to compensate for sampling dullness on physical LEDs. Available color types: Rgba/Rgb (u8 sRGB), RgbaF32 (linear f32), Oklab, Oklch. The engine implements correct sRGB transfer functions and Oklab/Oklch math.
Quick Checklist
Before starting:
- Pick 1-3 colors from Tier 1/2 hues
- Saturation 85-100%, HSL lightness 40-55%
- Choose a low-spatial-frequency pattern
While building:
- Trail/fade overlay for motion
- Delta-time animation
- Oklab interpolation for gradients
- Sinusoidal easing for organic motion
- Design darkness into the composition
Testing:
- Whiteness ratio < 0.3 for vivid areas?
- Any hues in 30-90 danger zone? Test on hardware
- Transitions > 200ms?
- Works on both small (keyboard) and large (strip) layouts?
Detailed References
For deeper information, consult:
references/color-science.md — Full LED color science: saturation ranges, hue tiers, gamma correction, blowout prevention, yellow/brown problem, gradient transitions, per-channel calibrationreferences/effect-design.md — Complete effect design theory: noise functions, Voronoi, metaballs, temporal patterns, palette design, shader porting, rendering pipeline detailsdocs/content/effects/color-science.md — The shipping guide: hue tiers, saturation strategy, whiteness ratio test, gamma, composite modes, community patternsdocs/content/effects/typescript-effects.md, glsl-effects.md, raw-html.md — Authoring references for each rendering pathdocs/content/effects/display-faces.md — Display-face authoring: the descriptor contract, layout variants per form factor, typed data sources (media/net/lighting), 15-30fps motion design, the Servo CSS support matrix, and the two-display quality gate
