Animation Generators

Animation generators create procedural animations that you can customize and apply to your canvas. Each generator produces greyscale animation frames that you then map to characters and colors.

Overview

Generators provide a way to create complex animated effects without drawing each frame manually. The system works in two stages:

Animation - Generate greyscale frames using mathematical patterns
Mapping - Convert greyscale values to characters, text colors, and background colors

Info

Generators output greyscale values (0-255) that represent brightness. The mapping controls then translate these values into your final ASCII art appearance.

The Dual-Tab Layout

When you open a generator, you'll see a panel with two tabs:

Animation Tab

The Animation tab contains:

Preview Canvas - Live preview of the generated animation with playback controls
Generator Settings - Sliders and controls specific to each generator type

Mapping Tab

The Mapping tab controls how greyscale values become ASCII art:

Character Mapping - Which characters represent different brightness levels
Text Color Mapping - Colors applied to the text characters
Background Color Mapping - Colors applied behind each cell

The Greyscale Mental Model

Understanding how generators work requires thinking in greyscale:

Generation Phase: The generator creates frames where each cell has a brightness value from 0 (black) to 255 (white)
Character Mapping: Brightness values map to characters. Dark values might use sparse characters like . or , while bright values use dense characters like # or █
Color Mapping: The same brightness values can drive color gradients. You can map dark-to-light to any color palette

Info

The preview canvas shows the greyscale output before mapping is applied. This helps you understand what the generator is producing before you style it.

Available Generators

Generator	Description
Digital Rain	Matrix-style falling character trails
Particle Physics	Physics-based particle systems with gravity and collisions
Radio Waves	Expanding concentric wave patterns
Rain Drops	Water ripple effects with interference
Turbulent Noise	Animated Perlin/Simplex noise patterns

Accessing Generators

Open the right panel and expand the Generators section

Click on a generator name to open its panel

Adjust animation settings in the Animation tab

Configure character and color mapping in the Mapping tab

Choose output mode (Overwrite or Append)

Click Apply to Canvas or Generate Animation

Output Modes

When applying a generator, choose how frames are added:

Mode	Behavior
Overwrite	Replace frames starting from the current frame
Append	Add frames after the last existing frame

Common Controls

Most generators share these controls:

Random Seed

Each generator uses a random seed to create reproducible results. The same seed with the same settings produces identical output.

Click the dice icon to randomize the seed
Enter a specific number for reproducible results

Reset to Defaults

Click Reset to Defaults to restore all generator settings to their initial values.

Tips

Start with defaults - Each generator has tuned default values that produce good results
Preview before applying - Use the preview canvas to see the animation before committing
Experiment with mapping - The same generator can look completely different with different character and color mappings
Use the seed - Save interesting seeds to recreate specific patterns later