Dot Field

A field of dots whose size breathes with a travelling noise wave, and that part around the pointer.

• Category: Backgrounds
• Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
• Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
• Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge

Examples

Dot Field

API reference

About Dot Field

Dot Field is a field of dots whose size breathes with a travelling noise wave, and that parts around the pointer.

Dot Field is an animated background for React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4 and animated with Motion. It drops into Next.js, Vite, Remix or Astro through the shadcn CLI as a single file you own.

When to use Dot Field

• Subtle hero backgrounds.
• Developer and docs sites.
• Behind stats and features.
• Empty states.

How it works

Dot size comes from a moving noise wave and pointer distance. It runs on a canvas capped at 2x pixel density, pauses when scrolled off screen, and reads its colours from your theme tokens so it follows dark mode.

The whole layer is decorative and aria-hidden, sits behind your content without taking pointer events it does not need, and pauses when scrolled off screen. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.

Customizing Dot Field

Every prop is documented in the API reference above with its type and default. The ones you will reach for first are listed here.

The Customize panel next to the preview lets you change gap, size, speed, color live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.

• gap (number, default 20): Pixels between dots.
• size (number, default 3): Largest dot radius in px.
• speed (number, default 1).
• color (string, default "var(--muted-foreground)").
• radius (number, default 120): Pointer influence radius in px.

Goes well with Dot Field

These backgrounds pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.

• Ember Field: An animated React ember background: glowing embers drift up and flicker as they cool
• Smoke: A slow React smoke background: blurred plumes drifting over dark sections, CSS only
• Aurora: An animated React aurora background: soft light bands drifting across a section
• Grid Beams: A React grid background with beams of light running along its lines
• Meteors: A React meteor shower background: streaks falling diagonally, CSS only

Install Dot Field

npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/dot-field

Dot Field is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 300 Pro components, 107 landing-page sections and 100 full templates, for every personal and client project, with updates included. Add the @charcoal registry once with your access token, then the command above copies dot-field.tsx into components/ui and installs clsx, tailwind-merge.

You own the file you install: no runtime package, no lock-in, nothing to keep in sync. Change it however your product needs.

See Charcoal UI Pro pricing · Pro setup

Frequently asked questions

How do I install Dot Field?

Dot Field is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/dot-field. It copies dot-field.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.

Is Dot Field free for commercial use?

Dot Field needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.

Does Dot Field work with Next.js?

Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.

Can an AI coding agent install Dot Field?

Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Dot Field's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.

Dot Field as Markdown · llms.txt