Release log · 5 milestones

Building Abyssal

One immersive website about the deep ocean, shipped in five laps. Each release keeps everything before it and adds one headline feature. Open any milestone to see the site exactly as it stood at that release.

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v5.0 Release 5 Latest

Deep Sound

The finale: the site becomes an experience you hear as well as see.

  • Cinematic preloader that tracks real asset loading, then opens like an iris
  • Generative soundscape built live in the browser: an ocean current that muffles as you sink, a drone that swells with depth, distant whale calls
  • Sonar ping with echo on every click
  • Pinned "final descent" where scrolling scrubs the video frame by frame to 10,935 m
  • "Return to the surface" ascent with rising bubbles and an opening filter
627 lines42 KB
Glowing jellyfish in black waterOpen v5 →
v4.0 Release 4

Field Guide

A gallery of deep-sea residents that travels sideways while you scroll down.

  • Pinned horizontal gallery driven by GSAP ScrollTrigger
  • Five AI-generated creature portraits with parallax inside each card
  • 3D card tilt and a light spot that follows the cursor; stories reveal on hover
  • Headlines split into letters that rise in as they enter
  • Lenis smooth scrolling and smooth anchor travel
454 lines30 KB
Anglerfish with glowing lureOpen v4 →
v3.0 Release 3

Bioluminescence

The water comes alive, and it reacts to you.

  • Canvas particle sea: marine snow plus glowing plankton that grow denser the deeper you go
  • Plankton scatter from your cursor and flare as it passes
  • Click anywhere to send a light pulse that ignites everything it touches
  • Custom glowing cursor with a lagging ring that blooms over links
333 lines21 KB
Glowing siphonophore chainOpen v3 →
v2.0 Release 2

The Descent

Scrolling becomes diving.

  • Live depth gauge from 0 to 10,935 m with pressure, temperature and light readouts
  • Water colour darkens continuously from sunlit teal to hadal black
  • Swaying light shafts that fade out as you pass 500 m
  • Parallax hero: the video zooms and fades as you leave the surface
240 lines15 KB
Light shafts through blue waterOpen v2 →
v1.0 Release 1

Foundation

The story, the type and the hero film.

  • Full-bleed hero film generated with Google Flow (Veo 3.1), looped seamlessly
  • Editorial type system: Instrument Serif with Inter Tight
  • Five ocean zones, from sunlight to hadal trench
  • Scroll-triggered reveals and a responsive layout
165 lines10 KB
Jellyfish under light shaftsOpen v1 →