The page after the splash was two screens of text before the first image. Selected
Works (the bento, with the live barns vignette) now leads and the services copy
supports it below, wrapped in the same scroll-reveal.
Splash: the first wheel tick, 24px touch drag, or scroll key now plays the SAME
water-ripple enter as a tap (scrolling past used to hard-cut after a full screen).
Listeners are passive, the entering guard dedupes, reduced-motion still gets the
instant dismiss.
Pre-warm: on requestIdleCallback (post-LCP, invisible to Lighthouse) a 1px element
paints through the splash-water filter so the graph compiles before first use (the
first-tap stutter), and the logo layer gets will-change ahead of the zoom.
Verified with Playwright against the production build: wheel/key/touch all enter,
session flag set, bento renders above What We Do.
- Remove framer-motion from the two components that pulled it into the homepage's
initial bundle: HeroSplash (click-to-enter wash -> CSS keyframe; reduced-motion
check moved into the handler) and ScrollReveal (whileInView -> IntersectionObserver
+ CSS transition). framer now only lives in the lazy nebula chunk, which never loads
during the splash. First Load JS on / : 174 kB -> 138 kB.
- Monitor terminal: blink ~7 times before typing 'such' (so it's catchable even when
the splash is skipped on refresh), then type/hold/backspace/blink/fade as before.
Desktop behavior unchanged; both converted components still respect reduced-motion.
- The high-priority <link rel=preload as=image> stole bandwidth from render-
blocking CSS on 4G, pushing FCP 1.1s -> 2.2s and the score 82 -> 70. Removed.
- TBT is ~30ms (not main-thread bound), so the FCP->LCP gap was the logo's
network fetch. Inline the mark as a data URI: zero request, paints with FCP.
LCP should drop toward FCP and stop swinging run-to-run.
- Logo is a plain <img fetchPriority=high> in a plain div (no framer-motion,
no drop-shadow filter) so it is a clean, statically-painted LCP candidate.
Water filter + a CSS zoom apply only on enter.
- Tracer target nudged to computerX/Y +1.5 (between the low-right +2.5 and the
high-left +0.5).
- Inline <svg> is not an LCP candidate; on mobile the tagline is hidden so the
logo was the only large element -> NO_LCP. Serve the mark as
/images/branding/splash-such.svg and render it via <img> (a valid LCP
candidate, painted from SSR HTML).
- Transition: start the cross-fade on click (shimmer plays as the splash fades
into the content) and shorten durations 1.2s -> 0.8s; snappier and blended.
- Tracer target back to the midpoint (computerX+0.5, computerY+0.5).
- Drop the two animated glow rings: stroke-dashoffset is non-composited, so
they repainted every frame next to the logo and prevented Lighthouse from
settling on an LCP (mobile NO_LCP). The static box + pulsing glow remain.
- Splash now cross-fades into the content: on enter it becomes a fixed overlay
and fades opacity to 0 over the revealed page, instead of a hard cut.
- Nebula tracer target moved up-and-left (computerX-1, computerY-1.5) so the
streamers converge on the monitor screen, not below-right of it.
- Removed the now-unused splash-* keyframes.
- Revert the nebula density/parallax change that disturbed the carefully
tuned streamer convergence (it gave no perf benefit; the nebula is behind
the splash and not in the load trace).
- Logo is now fully static (no float/breath) so it's a stable LCP candidate
on mobile; the rings, glow pulse, and staged button fade-ins still carry
the motion. (Desktop TBT win from the framer->CSS conversion is retained.)
- The splash's always-on animations (logo float/breath, the two traveling
glow rings) move from framer-motion (JS rAF every frame on the main thread)
to CSS keyframes (browser/compositor). framer now only drives the one-shot
click-to-enter water exit.
- Nebula: density 8 -> 4 and dropped the scroll parallax (the Forced-reflow
source); reduced-motion still gets the static background.
The logo stays painted at first render (LCP-safe); the tagline, corner
buttons, and Explore hint now stagger-fade in via Tailwind animate-in
(CSS/compositor, no JS main-thread cost). motion-safe only.
The splash logo (the LCP element) started at opacity:0 and only faded in
after framer-motion hydrated, pushing mobile LCP to ~7s. Render it visible
immediately; the float/breath animations still layer on top.
Drop the expanding circles. Clicking the logo now runs an SVG
feTurbulence + feDisplacementMap filter over the mark, ramped by a rAF
loop, so it ripples like a disturbed liquid surface and settles, with a
soft Cherenkov wash + backdrop blur, then enters. Reduced-motion still
enters instantly.
- Hide the cover tagline and subheader on mobile (logo + corner icons carry
it); only the labeled pills/tagline show at sm+.
- On enter, fade the logo, tagline, buttons, and Explore cue out while the
click-triggered wave plays.
- Waterier transition: backdrop-blur wash plus four expanding Cherenkov
ripples; reduced-motion still enters instantly.
- Mobile: corner nav buttons become icon-only (Portfolio/Apps/Services/About)
with aria-labels; subheader hidden on mobile so nothing overlaps the logo.
- More ambient motion: logo float plus a second counter-rotating glow ring.
- Clicking the logo (or Explore) triggers a Cherenkov wave (wash + expanding
rings) before entering; reduced-motion enters instantly.
- Beveled glass buttons.
- Splash: full-viewport animated SUCH logo cover with four corner nav
buttons; reveals the site once "entered" (scroll-through or Explore) and
does not resurrect on scroll-up. Original hero restored beneath it
(title-anchored monitor pulse + Cherenkov-blue background).
- Logo: traveling Cherenkov glow ring + gentle letter breath (SVG/Framer,
reduced-motion safe); beveled glass corner buttons.
- Services: new "Nuclear & Radiation Modeling" section + "Consulting"
umbrella (payments, crypto, nuclear), MCNP Google Scholar link, and a
not-a-licensed-PE clarification.
- About/founder bio: LLNL credibility + accessibility, art101.io link.
- Products: add Barns & Neutrons, Alpha Doc, Decay Theory (detail pages,
OG cards, SVG icons); client-side sortable grid with coming-soon at the
bottom. New Neroswap + Custom Websites icons (de-duplicated).
- SEO: game pages added to sitemap.
- Copy: dial back em-dashes to colons/commas/parens on home + services.
jwinterm