Reinventing Feathering for the Vectorian Era

This post from Rive's Head of Runtime Chris Dalton shows how we built a fully vector-based feathering system from scratch. It’s a deep dive into the Rive Renderer, why it’s more performant, and how it solves a problem that legacy specs never could. March, 2024. GDC. I was talking to a colleague when Sarah Warn , our VP of Growth, came over and asked, “Hey, could you please do glows and shadows?” She wasn’t asking on a whim. Designers had been requesting this for a while. She knew that if we shipped it, it would be huge. Our CEO, Guido Rosso , had been pushing for this since my first day. Rive CTO Luigi Rosso , his twin brother, used to joke that the second the Rive Renderer shipped, our first priority had to be glows and shadows, or Guido would start flipping tables. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ It was always in the back of my mind. But I also knew I didn’t want to take the typical approach. Why Gaussian wasn’t an option The default way to handle glows and shadows in design software is a Gaussian ... Read full article.