WebGL without the regret

WebGL is how the web does spectacle, and how agencies do regret. The scene that wowed the client in the pitch becomes the reason the site takes eleven seconds to load in a train station. Here's the checklist that keeps 3D worth being proud of later.

The rules

• One scene per page, maximum. If two things need WebGL, one of them doesn't.
• Budget it like an image: our scenes ship under 150KB of code and assets combined.
• Feature-detect and degrade beautifully, the CSS fallback is designed, not left over.
• Respect prefers-reduced-motion completely: no scene, not a slower scene.
• Pause everything the moment it leaves the viewport. GPUs drain batteries; batteries drain goodwill.
• Never gate content behind the canvas. The scene decorates the story; it is not the door to it.

Points, not polygons

The cheapest convincing 3D is often not geometry at all. Particle fields, instanced primitives and shader gradients read as rich while costing a fraction of a modelled scene. A particle field of six hundred points and one draw call can read as rich while outperforming hero videos a hundred times its size.

If the scene fails on a device you never tested, the site should lose a garnish, not a limb.

3D on the web is worth doing precisely because it's hard to do responsibly. When it's cheap, fast and optional, it stops being a stunt and becomes what it should have been all along: atmosphere.