GPU Canvas is now live for every Rive user.
In June we opened Early Access to Rive's low-level GPU layer for 3D, shaders, and custom effects. Today it ships in the production editor, with runtime support on Web, iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, and C++, and more on the way.
What it is: a developer-first layer under the Rive Renderer. Write a shader once in WGSL and Rive compiles it for whatever the platform needs: Metal, Vulkan, Direct3D, WebGPU, or WebGL. It adds 25KB to the runtime.
What you can build with it:
• Custom shaders and post effects, from rim light and bloom to felt textures and screen transitions
• 3D model rendering, with your own importer and your own pipeline
• 2D Rive artboards as live, interactive textures on 3D geometry
• 3D geometry inside 2D artboards, resizing and updating with the rest of the UI through Layouts and Data Binding
• Games: 3D worlds with 2D characters and gamepad input, built in the same editor as the UI
What changed since Early Access:
• Deferred Rendering. Rive draws on its own thread, so heavy GPU scenes stay smooth while the rest of your app does its work. Live in the editor today, coming to the runtimes next.
• The Rive MCP writes, edits, and tests WGSL shaders from any MCP-compatible tool. The in-editor Agent does the same, so you don't need to be a graphics programmer to ship one.
What only Rive offers: 3D that lives inside real design tooling. Responsive Layouts, State Machines, dynamic text, Vector Feathering, skeletal animation, and data-bound UI all work with GPU Canvas content, in the same file, authored by the same team.
And this isn't a web-only 3D solution. The same file runs natively on desktop apps, games, mobile apps, consoles, TVs, and vehicles, with the same shaders compiled for whatever GPU is underneath. One runtime, everywhere Rive goes.
What's next? Public libraries for the common jobs (GLTF import, lighting, render styles), so nobody starts from a blank shader.
Open the production editor, create a Script, pick Shader. Docs: https://lnkd.in/gkSAYtjp