Long story short…
Mesh
A polygon mesh is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling. The faces usually consist of triangles (triangle mesh).
Vertex Shader
A Shader is a program designed to run on a GPU. Its purpose is to execute one of the programmable stages of the 3D rendering pipeline.
There are two types of shaders: vertex shaders and fragment shaders. Vertex shaders are run for each vertex, while fragment shaders are run for every generated fragment (pixel).
The Vertex Shader is the programmable Shader stage in the rendering pipeline that handles the processing of individual vertices. It receives a single vertex from the vertex stream and generates a single vertex to the output vertex stream.
Perlin noise
Perlin Noise is an algorithm that is used in procedural content generation. It has a more organic appearance because it produces a more natural (“fluid”) sequence of pseudo-random numbers than usual random numbers generators.
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In this example, I use this Perlin noise generator to dipslace each vertex of the mesh directly inside the vertex shader:
uniform float time;
varying vec3 vNormal;
varying vec2 vUv;
void main()
{
float displacement = 16.0* cnoise( 0.02 * position + time );
vUv = uv;
vNormal = normal;
vec3 newPosition = position + normal * displacement;
gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4( newPosition, 1.0 );
}
Classic Perlin Noise Algorithm in Javascript :
vec3 mod289(vec3 x)
{
return x - floor(x * (1.0 / 289.0)) * 289.0;
}
vec4 mod289(vec4 x)
{
return x - floor(x * (1.0 / 289.0)) * 289.0;
}
vec4 permute(vec4 x)
{
return mod289(((x*34.0)+1.0)*x);
}
vec4 taylorInvSqrt(vec4 r)
{
return 1.79284291400159 - 0.85373472095314 * r;
}
vec3 fade(vec3 t) {
return t*t*t*(t*(t*6.0-15.0)+10.0);
}
float cnoise(vec3 P)
{
vec3 Pi0 = floor(P);
vec3 Pi1 = Pi0 + vec3(1.0);
Pi0 = mod289(Pi0);
Pi1 = mod289(Pi1);
vec3 Pf0 = fract(P);
vec3 Pf1 = Pf0 - vec3(1.0);
vec4 ix = vec4(Pi0.x, Pi1.x, Pi0.x, Pi1.x);
vec4 iy = vec4(Pi0.yy, Pi1.yy);
vec4 iz0 = Pi0.zzzz;
vec4 iz1 = Pi1.zzzz;
vec4 ixy = permute(permute(ix) + iy);
vec4 ixy0 = permute(ixy + iz0);
vec4 ixy1 = permute(ixy + iz1);
vec4 gx0 = ixy0 * (1.0 / 7.0);
vec4 gy0 = fract(floor(gx0) * (1.0 / 7.0)) - 0.5;
gx0 = fract(gx0);
vec4 gz0 = vec4(0.5) - abs(gx0) - abs(gy0);
vec4 sz0 = step(gz0, vec4(0.0));
gx0 -= sz0 * (step(0.0, gx0) - 0.5);
gy0 -= sz0 * (step(0.0, gy0) - 0.5);
vec4 gx1 = ixy1 * (1.0 / 7.0);
vec4 gy1 = fract(floor(gx1) * (1.0 / 7.0)) - 0.5;
gx1 = fract(gx1);
vec4 gz1 = vec4(0.5) - abs(gx1) - abs(gy1);
vec4 sz1 = step(gz1, vec4(0.0));
gx1 -= sz1 * (step(0.0, gx1) - 0.5);
gy1 -= sz1 * (step(0.0, gy1) - 0.5);
vec3 g000 = vec3(gx0.x,gy0.x,gz0.x);
vec3 g100 = vec3(gx0.y,gy0.y,gz0.y);
vec3 g010 = vec3(gx0.z,gy0.z,gz0.z);
vec3 g110 = vec3(gx0.w,gy0.w,gz0.w);
vec3 g001 = vec3(gx1.x,gy1.x,gz1.x);
vec3 g101 = vec3(gx1.y,gy1.y,gz1.y);
vec3 g011 = vec3(gx1.z,gy1.z,gz1.z);
vec3 g111 = vec3(gx1.w,gy1.w,gz1.w);
vec4 norm0 = taylorInvSqrt(vec4(dot(g000, g000), dot(g010, g010), dot(g100, g100), dot(g110, g110)));
g000 *= norm0.x;
g010 *= norm0.y;
g100 *= norm0.z;
g110 *= norm0.w;
vec4 norm1 = taylorInvSqrt(vec4(dot(g001, g001), dot(g011, g011), dot(g101, g101), dot(g111, g111)));
g001 *= norm1.x;
g011 *= norm1.y;
g101 *= norm1.z;
g111 *= norm1.w;
float n000 = dot(g000, Pf0);
float n100 = dot(g100, vec3(Pf1.x, Pf0.yz));
float n010 = dot(g010, vec3(Pf0.x, Pf1.y, Pf0.z));
float n110 = dot(g110, vec3(Pf1.xy, Pf0.z));
float n001 = dot(g001, vec3(Pf0.xy, Pf1.z));
float n101 = dot(g101, vec3(Pf1.x, Pf0.y, Pf1.z));
float n011 = dot(g011, vec3(Pf0.x, Pf1.yz));
float n111 = dot(g111, Pf1);
vec3 fade_xyz = fade(Pf0);
vec4 n_z = mix(vec4(n000, n100, n010, n110), vec4(n001, n101, n011, n111), fade_xyz.z);
vec2 n_yz = mix(n_z.xy, n_z.zw, fade_xyz.y);
float n_xyz = mix(n_yz.x, n_yz.y, fade_xyz.x);
return 2.2 * n_xyz;
}