A browser-based real-time ASCII art engine. No downloads, no installs, no command line — just open the page and start creating. Convert any video source into stunning ASCII art with GPU acceleration, 25+ visual effects, and one-click recording.
Pick from webcam, video upload, screen capture, or animated 3D models
Select themes, character sets, effects, and adjust resolution in real-time
Record WebM video, capture screenshots, or export as GIF, sprite sheets, and more
Four ways to feed video into the ASCII engine
Live feed from your camera. Perfect for real-time ASCII selfies and video calls.
Drop any video file to convert it frame-by-frame into ASCII art.
Capture your screen, a window, or a browser tab and render it as ASCII.
Animated GLB/GLTF models rendered through Three.js into real-time ASCII.
Two rendering pipelines optimized for different use cases
Canvas-based pixel sampling with per-character color. Maximum compatibility on all devices. Uses LightweightASCII.js.
WebGL shader-based rendering at higher resolutions with GPU parallelism. Uses ShaderASCII.js for 60fps at 300+ columns.
Five color modes that transform the look of your ASCII output
Full-color from source video
Matrix-style terminal green
Retro amber phosphor CRT
Cool cyan sci-fi terminal
Classic black & white
Six ASCII character palettes — from detailed shading to abstract art
Classic 10-character ASCII ramp. The iconic look.
70-character gradient for maximum tonal range and detail.
Tightly packed characters for rich, high-contrast output.
Unicode block elements create a pixel-art mosaic effect.
Only 0s and 1s — pure Matrix digital rain aesthetic.
Unicode Braille patterns for ultra-fine dot-matrix resolution.
30+ real-time shader effects applied on top of the ASCII output
Glowing edge detection
Soft light bleed glow
Lightning bolt distortion
Sweeping line reveal
Digital corruption artifacts
RGB channel separation
Water wave distortion
Mirrored fractal patterns
Chunky pixel mosaic
Expanding ring distortion
Caustics + water refraction
Curved CRT scanlines
Tape tracking noise
Analog grain texture
Game Boy dot-matrix grid
Neon pink/blue split
Green digital cascade
Heat map colors
False-color IR camera
Holographic blue projection
Animated hue rotation
Two-color palette mapping
Military-grade green
Vintage warm tone
Negative color flip
Reduced color palette
Inverted contrast scan
Psychedelic color wobble
Painterly smear filter
3D relief carving
Dark edge fading
Digital rain column overlay
Multiple output formats for every use case
Record real-time ASCII to browser-native WebM video with audio.
One-click PNG capture of the current ASCII frame.
Export looping ASCII animations as shareable GIFs.
Plain text ASCII frame — paste anywhere, share in chat.
ANSI escape sequence files for terminal/CLI playback.
Game-ready sprite atlas with frame metadata for integration.
Create in the browser. Play back anywhere Node.js runs.
Use the studio to design your ASCII art with any source, theme, and effects
Click "Export As..." → "Terminal Playback" to download a .zip
Full-color ANSI animations with one command
# Unzip the exported file $ unzip ascii-terminal-1707849600.zip $ cd ascii-terminal # Play at normal speed $ node play-ascii.js # Play at 2x speed $ node play-ascii.js 2 # Play at half speed for cinematic effect $ node play-ascii.js 0.5
The exported zip contains frames.json (ANSI-encoded frames with 24-bit color) and play-ascii.js (Node.js player). Works on any terminal that supports ANSI colors — macOS Terminal, iTerm2, Windows Terminal, VS Code terminal, and Linux terminals.
Start free. Go pro when you're ready.