Shaders, live.
Plugins, made.

GLim plays GLSL shaders live and turns them into plugins for your VJ software: FFGL for Resolume, ISF for MadMapper. Every parameter gets a slider. Free and open source.

Download Read the manual

Version 0.9 beta · Windows 10 and 11 · macOS 14+ on Apple Silicon

kaleidoBloom: a kaleidoscope of glowing rings

reactionBloom: reaction-diffusion coral patterns

gyroidDrift: contour lines through a gyroid lattice

Play it, tweak it, take it anywhere

Drop in a folder of shader files. GLim previews them on your graphics card, gives every parameter a control, and sends the result where you need it.

Playlists and slideshows

Step through a queue of shaders with the arrow keys, or let Auto play them as a looping slideshow. A queue can drive a whole show.

Live parameters

Every parameter gets a slider, switch or menu that changes the shader as it plays. In GLim and in the plugins, speed sliders change the pace without the motion jumping.

Fullscreen and Spout, Syphon, NDI®

Fullscreen on any monitor or projector, or send to Resolume, MadMapper, OBS and TouchDesigner: Spout and Syphon on the same computer, NDI across the network.

Remote control

Run playback, the slideshow, the outputs and the shader's parameters from a phone or tablet over OSC. TouchOSC layouts for both are included.

FFGL plugins for Resolume

Build a shader into an FFGL 2 plugin for Resolume 7.21.3 and later: a .dll on Windows, a universal .bundle on macOS, with your parameters as Resolume controls.

ISF files for MadMapper

Export any shader as an ISF 2 file for MadMapper, VDMX, Millumin and other ISF hosts.

How it works

No coding needed to use it. If you do write shaders, GLim handles the plumbing between formats.

Drop shaders on the queue

Files or whole folders: ISF (.fs), Shadertoy and GLSL Sandbox code (.txt or .glsl). Multi-pass projects work too.

Play and tweak in Studio

Preview each shader live, move its sliders, check how hard it works your graphics card, and save your settings with the shader.

Build or export

Click Build FFGL for a Resolume plugin or Export ISF for MadMapper. GLim checks the result on your GPU first.

Respect the license. Shaders you find online belong to the people who wrote them, and their licenses still apply to the plugins and ISF files you make from them. Many are for non-commercial use only, and most ask for credit. Check a shader's terms before you perform with it or share what you build, and keep the author's credit (more in the manual). The 18 shaders that come with GLim are public domain, so you can use them however you like.

Resolume Arena / Avenue MadMapper VDMX Millumin OBS TouchDesigner TouchOSC

18 shaders to start with

GLim comes with 18 shaders written for it: fourteen evolving patterns and four building blocks to layer into your own looks. They're public domain (CC0), so the plugins you build from them are yours to use and share.

**circleWeave**Three grids of circles weaving flower-of-life moiré.

**feedbackSwirlfeedback**Glowing seeds painting endless zooming trails.

**fractalBloom**Filigree fractal flowers that grow and dissolve.

**gyroidDrift**Contour lines sliding through a 3D gyroid lattice.

**hexPulse**A honeycomb of rings with waves of colour.

**inkMarblefeedback**Ink carried and marbled by a swirling flow.

**kaleidoBloom**A kaleidoscope of rings opening like a flower.

**lavaOrbs**Gooey orbs with soap-film skins, merging and parting.

**liquidPrism**Liquid colour folding into itself, never repeating.

**moireTides**Interfering ripples with a chromatic split.

**reactionBloomfeedback**Living reaction-diffusion: coral, mazes and cells.

**silkFlow**Silky ribbons of colour with a sliding sheen.

**spiralDream**An endless spiral tunnel that re-twists itself.

**voronoiGlass**Stained glass that won't sit still.

**shapeForgebuilding block**Polygons, stars and circles in concentric copies.

**gridMatrixbuilding block**A grid of shapes riding a travelling wave.

**radialBurstbuilding block**A sunburst of rays that spin and spiral.

**noiseFieldbuilding block**Tunable noise, as a texture or a mask.

Download

GLim is in beta. Downloads are on the GitHub Releases page: pick the zip for your computer under Assets. Each zip has the app, the manual, the 18 shaders and the TouchOSC layouts. There's no installer: unzip it and run.

Windows

GLim-version-windows.zip

64-bit Windows 10 or 11
A graphics card with OpenGL 4.1
For building plugins: Microsoft's free Build Tools for Visual Studio

macOS

GLim-version-macos.zip

Apple Silicon (M1 or later), macOS 14 Sonoma or later
Plugins it builds are universal (Intel too)
For building plugins: Xcode Command Line Tools and CMake

Download from GitHub Releases

The apps aren't code-signed yet, so Windows and macOS ask you to confirm the first time you open GLim. The manual walks you through it.

Open source

GLim is released under the MIT license. The source, the test suite and the issue tracker are on GitHub. Bug reports, shaders that won't convert and ideas are all welcome.

View on GitHub Report a problem

Shaders, live.Plugins, made.