liquidDX11

Source release - real-time desktop glass for Dear ImGui.

liquidDX11 is a native Windows demo that turns a borderless Dear ImGui window into a refractive, glossy glass overlay rendered in Direct3D 11. It captures the live desktop with DXGI Desktop Duplication, runs a Dual Kawase blur chain, and draws spring-animated glass UI on top with custom HLSL shaders.

Preview

Watch the full preview on YouTube

Note

This is a source release, not a packaged SDK. The original app code is MIT licensed and can be used for non-commercial or commercial projects. Dear ImGui, FreeType, and bundled fonts/icons keep their own licenses; see examples/example_win32_directx11/THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Overview

liquidDX11 recreates a liquid/frosted-glass desktop UI as a real Win32 overlay. Unlike browser glass libraries, it does not snapshot DOM elements or use WebGL. The background is the actual desktop frame captured through DXGI, blurred on the GPU, and sampled by an HLSL glass shader for refraction, chromatic separation, edge lighting, shadowing, and rounded SDF panes.

The UI layer is built on Dear ImGui 1.92.8 with a custom widget kit, a command palette, a demo-surface gallery, persistent glass.cfg settings, and an optional ffmpeg-based MP4 recorder.

Key Features

Feature	Supported
Real-time desktop refraction	Yes
DXGI Desktop Duplication capture	Yes
Direct3D 11 / HLSL renderer	Yes
Dual Kawase frosted blur	Yes
Adjustable refraction, chroma, blur, edge and shadow parameters	Yes
Specular highlights and rim lighting	Yes
Rounded SDF glass panes / blobs	Yes
Spring-driven widgets and dock motion	Yes
Dear ImGui custom widget kit	Yes
Demo surface gallery	Yes
Command palette (Ctrl+K)	Yes
Runtime config and presets through glass.cfg	Yes
Optional MP4 capture through ffmpeg (F9)	Yes
OBS / screen-capture visibility toggle (F11)	Yes
WebGL / DOM element support	No
Cross-platform support	No, Windows only

Build

Prerequisites

• Windows
• Visual Studio 2022 with the C++ workload
• MSBuild toolset v143
• Windows 10 SDK 10.0.22621.0 or newer
• x64 target

The project is x64-only because the bundled FreeType import library is x64.

Quick Start

Open liquidDX11.sln in Visual Studio 2022, choose Release|x64, and build.

From the repository root:

MSBuild liquidDX11.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64
examples\example_win32_directx11\Release\example_win32_directx11.exe

Or from Git Bash:

cd examples/example_win32_directx11
bash scripts/build.sh
bash scripts/build.sh run

Or with CMake:

cmake -S . -B build -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release
build\Release\liquidDX11.exe

Controls

Key	Action
Esc	Close the overlay
F9	Start / stop MP4 recording
F11	Toggle screen-capture visibility
Ctrl+K	Open the command palette

Configuration

On first run, the app writes a glass.cfg next to the executable. It stores the glass material, edge shader, window, and UI settings. You can also override paths:

Variable	Purpose
GLASS_ASSET_DIR	Base folder that contains the data/ assets
GLASS_CONFIG	Full path to a specific glass.cfg

The recorder looks for ffmpeg.exe on PATH. Output defaults to glass_recording.mp4 in the user profile.

Repository Layout

backends/                         Dear ImGui Win32/DX11 backends
data/                             Fonts and generated font data
examples/example_win32_directx11/ The liquidDX11 app
misc/freetype/                    Dear ImGui FreeType integration
thirdparty/freetype/              FreeType headers and x64 import library
imgui*.cpp, imgui*.h              Dear ImGui core sources

Main app sources:

examples/example_win32_directx11/src/main.cpp
examples/example_win32_directx11/src/glass/backdrop.cpp
examples/example_win32_directx11/src/glass/glass.cpp
examples/example_win32_directx11/src/glass/surfaces.cpp

The project uses a small unity-style layout: only those app .cpp files are compiled directly, and many UI pieces are included as .inc fragments.

Important Notes

• The overlay uses SetWindowDisplayAffinity so the app can hide itself from capture while still sampling the desktop backdrop.
• Desktop Duplication can fail on unsupported sessions, remote desktops, or unusual GPU/display configurations.
• Recording is optional and depends on ffmpeg being available.
• The demo surfaces are showcase UI, not production apps.

License

MIT for the original project code in examples/example_win32_directx11/src, scripts, and project files. Third-party components retain their own licenses.