The Shadertoy of node graphs
If your course already points students at Shadertoy — a free, no-install, forkable-by-link sandbox for learning shader programming — VerkLabs does the same job one level up: real-time node graphs, driving shading, motion, audio and interaction, shared the same way. It's already been classroom-tested, and it scaffolds naturally into professional tools like TouchDesigner for students who want to keep going.
Teaching something broader than shaders, or music as well as graphics? See teaching with VerkLabs.
How it compares
| Shadertoy | VerkLabs |
|---|---|
| Nothing to install — open a browser tab | Same — nothing to install, open a browser tab |
| Share a shader by URL, browse a public gallery | Share a project by URL, and fork other people's work |
| One fragment shader, GLSL only | A typed node graph per object — same shading math, plus vertex, particle and geometry hooks |
| A few built-in uniforms (iTime, iMouse) | The Runsheet — a real timeline mixing audio tracks, camera moves and parameters, frame-accurate |
| No native camera or mic input | Microphone, webcam, and hand/pose tracking as live node inputs |
| Often a capstone in itself | Same, plus a documented path onward into TouchDesigner |
In February 2026, VerkLabs ran a 3-hour hands-on workshop at Nottingham Trent University: six guided projects, no coding required, building visuals that react to music, voice, webcam and hand gestures.
Students lit up as they started making things — several said they wanted to use VerkLabs for their final projects. That was the moment it stopped feeling like a tool built for one person, and started feeling like something other people could find their own way into.
Ready to assign this term
Seventy-five guided lessons run inside the editor, and are free to assign as they are. For a longer, project-based path there is also the six-project starter guide used at the NTU workshop.
Seventy-five interactive lessons run beside the student's own project: a coach sets up each step, checks what they have built, offers hints, and does a step for them if they get stuck. They work at their own pace, and what they make is a real project they can share by link.
No license, no lab install, no GPU driver wrangling. Students open a link and start wiring nodes in the same session.
For students heading toward the industry-standard tool, there's a node-family-by-node-family comparison mapping what they've learned here onto where it leads.
Students who already write Shadertoy don't start from zero - their code pastes in directly, uniforms and all. A guided lesson, From Shadertoy to nodes, walks through it.
Every project is a link — open it, see the live result and the graph that built it, side by side. No file formats, no missing assets.
Bring VerkLabs into your course
Free for students, nothing to license, and ready to drop into a lab session this term. If you'd like example project files, a live demo for your department, or a workshop like the one at Nottingham Trent, get in touch.
Email education@verklabs.ai