---
name: particle-burst
description: Deterministic particle / confetti events — a confetti pop that bursts up and drifts down (optionally instant-shrinking away), a dot burst from behind text, or a glyph dissolving to particles. Every particle's state is a pure ballistic function of timeline time from index-seeded values, so a scrub to any t shows the correct mid-flight frame.
metadata:
  tags: particles, confetti, burst, dissolve, celebration, ballistic, deterministic, punctuation
---

# Particle Burst

Discrete flying particles as a one-shot event: a **confetti pop** that erupts upward and drifts back down on gravity, a **dot burst** radiating from behind a landing word, or a **glyph dissolve** where text breaks into particles that scatter and die. Particles are ephemeral garnish — born from a beat, fly, gone; they never become layout.

Boundaries: [css-marker-patterns.md](css-marker-patterns.md)'s burst mode is radiating **drawn lines** — a static accent, no flight. [press-release-spring.md](press-release-spring.md)'s release burst is **one blurred radial layer** faking an explosion — enough when a single glow pop will do. [center-outward-expansion.md](center-outward-expansion.md) moves **real layout elements** to final resting slots; particles have no destination, only physics and a death.

## How It Works

The whole event is **one driver tween and one formula**:

1. **Seeded setup** — a fixed pool of `PARTICLE_COUNT` small divs is created once at composition setup (a deterministic loop — setup-time generation is fine; per-frame DOM creation is not). Each particle `i` derives everything from a pure hash:

   ```js
   // angle, speed, size, spin, color (palette[i % palette.length]) — all from prand(i * k)
   const prand = (n) => {
     const x = Math.sin(n * 127.1 + 311.7) * 43758.5453;
     return x - Math.floor(x); // 0..1, pure function of n
   };
   ```

2. **Ballistic formula** — a proxy tween advances `T: 0 → 1` over `FLIGHT_DUR` with `ease: "none"`; `onUpdate` positions every particle as a **pure function of T**:

   ```
   x(T) = vx · T·FLIGHT_DUR
   y(T) = vy · T·FLIGHT_DUR + ½ · G · (T·FLIGHT_DUR)²
   rot(T) = spin · T·FLIGHT_DUR
   ```

   Gravity `G` supplies the rise-decelerate-fall arc for free. Because position is computed from `T` (never accumulated per frame), a seek to any moment renders the exact mid-flight state — this is what makes DOM particles seek-safe. The driver's `ease: "none"` is load-bearing: the physics lives in the formula; an eased driver warps gravity and the arc stops reading as thrown objects.

3. **Death** — an opacity tail inside the same formula (fade over the last `FADE_FRAC` of flight), or the confetti signature: a separate **instant-shrink** tween scaling the pool to 0 in a blink at flight end. Either way the particles end invisible and stay invisible.

## Recipe

```html
<!-- inside a standard scene clip (hyperframes-core) -->
<div class="burst-stage">
  <div class="particle-field" id="particle-field"></div>
  <div class="burst-hero" id="burst-hero">{heroWord}</div>
</div>
```

```css
/* .burst-stage: position: relative; display: grid; place-items: center.
   .burst-hero: z-index: 2 — particles fly BEHIND the word. */
.particle-field {
  position: absolute;
  z-index: 1;
  left: 50%;
  top: 50%; /* the launch origin — offset to taste (e.g. the word's baseline) */
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
}
.particle {
  position: absolute;
  left: 0;
  top: 0;
  border-radius: 2px; /* confetti chip; 50% for dots */
  opacity: 0; /* invisible until the event fires */
  will-change: transform, opacity;
}
```

```js
// Setup: deterministic pool, generated ONCE.
const field = document.getElementById("particle-field");
const palette = ["{accentA}", "{accentB}", "{accentC}"]; // 3-5 brand tokens
const parts = [];
for (let i = 0; i < PARTICLE_COUNT; i++) {
  const el = document.createElement("div");
  el.className = "particle";
  const size = SIZE_MIN + prand(i * 3 + 1) * (SIZE_MAX - SIZE_MIN);
  el.style.width = `${size}px`;
  el.style.height = `${size * 0.7}px`; // slightly oblong = confetti chip
  el.style.background = palette[i % palette.length];
  field.appendChild(el);
  // Index-seeded launch parameters — the particle's whole life, fixed here.
  const angle = -Math.PI / 2 + (prand(i * 5 + 2) * 2 - 1) * CONE; // upward cone
  const speed = SPEED_MIN + prand(i * 7 + 3) * (SPEED_MAX - SPEED_MIN);
  parts.push({
    el,
    vx: Math.cos(angle) * speed,
    vy: Math.sin(angle) * speed, // negative = up
    spin: (prand(i * 11 + 4) * 2 - 1) * SPIN_MAX,
  });
}

// Confetti pop — one driver, pure ballistic formula.
const drive = { T: 0 };
tl.fromTo(
  drive,
  { T: 0 },
  {
    T: 1,
    duration: FLIGHT_DUR,
    ease: "none", // physics lives in the formula, not the ease
    onUpdate: () => {
      const t = drive.T * FLIGHT_DUR; // seconds of flight — pure function of T
      const fade = Math.min(1, (1 - drive.T) / FADE_FRAC); // opacity tail
      parts.forEach((p) => {
        const x = p.vx * t;
        const y = p.vy * t + 0.5 * G * t * t; // rise, stall, drift down
        p.el.style.transform = `translate(${x}px, ${y}px) rotate(${p.spin * t}deg)`;
        p.el.style.opacity = String(drive.T === 0 ? 0 : fade); // T===0 guard covers seeks before the event
      });
    },
  },
  BURST_AT,
);
```

## Variations

- **Confetti pop, then instant-shrink** — the playful signature: full burst, gravity drift, then every chip scales to 0 in a blink: `FADE_FRAC` near 0, plus `tl.to(".particle", { scale: 0, duration: SHRINK_DUR, ease: "power2.in" }, BURST_AT + FLIGHT_DUR - SHRINK_DUR)` with `SHRINK_DUR` 0.15–0.25s. Keep the whole event tiny relative to the subject — a garnish measured in a few dozen pixels, not a screen-filling cannon.
- **Dot burst behind a landing word** — radial instead of a cone: `angle = prand(i) * Math.PI * 2`, `G` near 0, short flight (0.4–0.7s), round dots (`border-radius: 50%`), pool z-indexed behind the word. Fire at the word's settle frame.
- **Glyph dissolve** — seed each particle's **origin** across the glyph block's box (`ox = (prand(i*13) - 0.5) * BLOCK_W`, same for `oy`, added inside the transform), gentle outward drift with low `G`; text fades out over the first ~30% of flight while particles fade in from its silhouette. Color every particle `{textColor}` so the swarm reads as the text's own material. (True per-pixel dissolves are Canvas-2D territory — `techniques.md`; this DOM version sells it up to ~40 particles.)
- **Two-stage burst (pop + stragglers)** — split the pool: 70% on the main driver, 30% on a second driver ~0.12s later with lower speeds; the split is index-derived (`i % 10 < 3`). Same formula, two windows.

## Values

| token                 | range                                        | notes                                                                           |
| --------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --- | ----------------------- |
| PARTICLE_COUNT        | 10–18 pop/dots; 24–40 dissolve               | **cap ~40** — per-frame style writes; past that, seek perf and register degrade |
| G                     | 900–1600 px/s² confetti; 0–200 dots/dissolve | natural fall vs drift                                                           |
| SPEED_MIN / SPEED_MAX | 250–700 px/s                                 | per-particle via `prand`, never uniform                                         |
| CONE                  | 0.35–0.8 rad (~20–45°)                       | wider = splash, narrower = fountain                                             |
| FLIGHT_DUR            | 0.7–1.4s                                     | arc should peak ~35–45% of flight: check `                                      | vy  | / G ≈ 0.4 × FLIGHT_DUR` |
| SIZE_MIN / SIZE_MAX   | 5–14px chips; 4–8px dots                     | on a 1080p frame                                                                |
| SPIN_MAX              | 180–720 deg/s confetti; 0 dots               | tumble                                                                          |
| FADE_FRAC             | 0.2–0.35                                     | near 0 when using instant-shrink                                                |
| BURST_AT              | on a cause                                   | the word's settle, a click, a lockup completing — an uncaused burst is noise    |

## Critical Constraints

- **Position is a pure function of time, driver ease `"none"`** — `x(T)`, `y(T)`, `rot(T)` computed from the driver value every frame, never accumulated (`+=`) per tick (accumulation breaks the moment the renderer seeks); gravity is the ease — an eased driver bends the parabola.
- **Fixed pool, no per-frame DOM** — all particles exist after setup with `opacity: 0`; the event only writes `transform` / `opacity`. **`PARTICLE_COUNT ≤ ~40`** — per-frame style writes scale linearly; keep the event cheap.
- **Particles start AND end at `opacity: 0`** — the `drive.T === 0` guard covers seeks to before the event; the tail/shrink covers after. A chip frozen mid-air at driver end is a bug every subsequent frame.
- **Particles are punctuation** — one event per beat, fired on a cause, small relative to the subject, dead before the next beat; z-ordered behind or around the word it celebrates, never over it. A persistent particle system is a background, and that's not this rule.

## See also

`spring-pop-entrance` (confetti fires on the hero's settle frame) · `kinetic-beat-slam` (one beat earns the confetti payoff) · `press-release-spring` (single-layer glow alternative, or compose both) · `css-marker-patterns` (drawn-line burst when the accent should feel hand-annotated) · `scale-swap-transition` (glyph dissolve covers the exit).