With the advent of Microsoft's Fluent Design System and the propagation of the new Acrylic Material around the Windows ecosystem, I thought it would be great to use it in some Web layouts.
Acoording to the spec, the composition of an acrylic layer is:
So I went to try a CSS-only approach inspired by the layers in that picture, this way:
body {
margin: 0;
font: 1em/1.4 Sans-serif;
background: url("https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/03/27/16/50/beach-2179624_1280.jpg") center center;
background-size: 100vw auto;
}
main {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
height: 100vh;
}
.acrylic {
padding: 4em 6em;
position: relative;
overflow: hidden;
}
.acrylic::before {
background: url("https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/03/27/16/50/beach-2179624_1280.jpg") center center;
background-size: 100vw auto;
filter: blur(10px);
content: "";
position: absolute;
left: -10px;
top: -10px;
width: calc(100% + 20px);
height: calc(100% + 20px);
z-index: -1;
}
.acrylic::after {
content: "";
position: absolute;
left: 0;
top: 0;
right: 0;
bottom: 0;
z-index: -1;
opacity: 0.65;
border: 1px solid #fff;
background: #fff;
background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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);
}
.shadow {
border-radius: 1px;
box-shadow: 0 10px 30px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0 1px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
}
<main>
<div class="acrylic shadow">
Acrylic material!
</div>
</main>
The result is really close to the spec and is also responsive, but has a big problem: just stack another .acrylic
div and the background trick doesn't work anymore.
The question is: is there some smarter way to gaussian blur without duplicating the body background for each children? Or maybe some smarter way to dinamically calculate its position?
2022 Update
When I originally posted this question, the backdrop-filter
CSS feature was an experimental thing not enabled even in Chrome, so I was asking for an alternative solution, if possible, at the time.
Time passes... Finally it's enabled by default on all browsers over 0.5% users. So it's really simplier to solve nowadays than it was before.
TL;DR: Use
backdrop-filter
for theblur
effect and that's it.
When I originally posted the question, the backdrop-filter
CSS feature was an experimental thing not enabled even in Chrome, so I was asking for an alternative solution, if possible, at the time.
Since then, the backdrop-filter
feature shipped in Chrome 76 at July 29ᵗʰ 2019, already turning it into a viable option for progressive enhancement use cases. Finally, after years of recurring postpones, Firefox released it enabled by default in 103 version, at July 26ᵗʰ 2022.
Now with a theoretical cross-browser support on about 95%, and a practical 100% support considering browsers with more than 0.5% of users, it's clearly the option to go:
/* Now all the acrylic layer is just only one class! */
.acrylic {
/* Parent background + Gaussian blur */
backdrop-filter: blur(10px);
-webkit-backdrop-filter: blur(10px); /* Safari */
/* Exclusion blend */
background-blend-mode: exclusion;
/* Color/tint overlay + Opacity */
background: rgba(255, 255, 255, .6);
/* Tiled noise texture */
background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,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);
}
/* Other styles for sample purposes... */
body {
margin: 0;
padding: 1.5em;
font: 1em/1.4 Sans-serif;
/* Now our background image is defined only in the body! */
background: url("https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/03/27/16/50/beach-2179624_1280.jpg") center center;
background-size: 100vw auto;
}
main {
display: grid;
gap: 1.5rem;
justify-content: center;
grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(250px, 1fr));
grid-auto-rows: minmax(120px, auto);
}
div {
padding: 1.5em;
border-radius: 1px;
border: 1px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, .2);
box-shadow: 0 10px 30px rgba(0, 0, 0, .1), 0 1px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, .2);
text-align: center;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
}
<main>
<div class="acrylic">
Acrylic material!
</div>
<div class="acrylic">
<div class="acrylic">
Acrylic inside acrylic!
</div>
</div>
<div class="acrylic">
Acrylic material!
</div>
<div class="acrylic">
Acrylic material!
</div>
</main>