Ink Drop
coloured ink blooming through a dark pool

What you see on every new tab

Ink Drop turns the New Tab page into a dark pool with coloured ink spreading through it. About once a second a new drop surfaces somewhere in the pool, swells into a soft cloud over a few seconds and is carried off by slow currents, so the pool always holds many clouds at different stages of fading.

Every colour of the rainbow turns up. The ink has a wet, glossy surface, lit from a light that sways slowly, and each cloud fades away over about half a minute.

• Blooms: each drop fades in over about two seconds, grows to nearly three times its first size, and stops feeding after about five to eight seconds; up to twelve are active at once.
• Any colour: every bloom picks its own hue, so reds, greens, blues and violets sit side by side.
• Wet shine: the ink is shaded as a raised surface with a moving highlight, which makes the clouds look glossy rather than flat.
• Two slow currents: two wide currents drift around the pool and keep turning, which folds the ink and stops it collecting in one corner.
• Colours stay colours: where ink overlaps, its strength is capped so mixed clouds keep their hue instead of burning to white.

Ink Drop runs a two-dimensional fluid on the graphics card: velocity and ink live in half-float textures, 20 pressure passes keep the water incompressible, and every drop, current and stroke is added as a soft splat into those fields.

What it reacts to

• Mouse: moving the pointer pushes the water and releases ink, more the faster you move. Its colour steps through the whole rainbow about every 29 seconds, so a long swipe paints a shifting ribbon.
• Music: with music sync on, bass makes blooms come faster and stronger, a kick throws a splash of contrasting ink at a random spot, and treble sets off tiny ripples and brightens the shine.
• Night: after sunset the shared night veil darkens the whole page, up to 60 percent at full night.

Free or Pro?Pro

Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Ink Drop is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Ink Drop full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.

How to get it

1. Add Ambient New Tab to Chrome.
2. Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
3. Pick Ink Drop. Done.

Questions

How long does ink stay in the pool?

Ink fades gradually, losing a little strength every second, so a cloud is mostly gone after about thirty seconds. New blooms keep arriving at roughly one per second, which keeps the pool full without ever settling into one picture.

Is Ink Drop free?

It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released. Preview it full screen before buying.

Can I draw with it?

Yes. There is no clicking involved: just move the pointer across the page. Faster strokes push the water harder and lay down more ink, and the colour you paint with slowly changes, so returning to the same spot later gives a different hue.

What if my computer cannot run the fluid?

The simulation needs WebGL2 with floating-point render targets. Without them a drifting procedural ink pattern in rainbow colours stands in. It has no physics, but a soft coloured glow still follows your pointer.

Does it work on my phone?

No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.

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