ASCIImation

ASCIImation - ASCII Animation 101

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ASCIImation is the combination of the two words ASCII and Animation and a very unique and rare type of ASCII art, although it became one of the better known types of ASCII art outside the ASCII art scene thanks to the use in mainstream media music videos etc. While traditional ASCII art is made by made by the artist (despite the tools that exist to convert images to ASCII etc.), is ASCIImation done that way very rare and often very short. Some exceptions are some of the older ACiD and iCE ANSI animations from 1991 and 1992.

ASCIImations are usually done with the help of computers that convert video frames to text or use routines that render pre-calculated effects on the fly and decide programatically which character should be used to get the best result. Doing that right is an art of its own and not that easy to do. For that reason do I consider ASCIImation to be text ART as well. On the other hand are people who use those tools and methods not artists in my eyes. You might be able to call them designers, but that is about as far as I would go. Somebody who tries to sell people his converted imagery as hand made art pieces he creeated himself are simply fraud and I have no love for them whatsoever.

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Real-Time ASCIIMations



  1. "Morph" - ASCII Animation (ASCIIMation) using JavaScript created by Skylined. It "morphs" a number of ASCII pictures from one into another and finishes with a great "mandelbrot" fractal zoom.
  1. "Star Field" - Another nice ASCII Animation using JavaScript created by Skylined showing a horizontal semi 3d star field animation like the ones that were popular in old computer demos and intros.
  1. "Julia Roto Zoom" - A fascinating fractal zoomer ASCIImation in 270 bytes by Skylined. Be patient, it takes a couple seconds before details become more and more distinct.
  1. "Mandelbrot Roto Zoom" - Another fractal zoomer ASCIImation by Skylined, also just 270 bytes of JavaScript code, just like for the Julia Fractal Zoomer.
  1. "Multiple JAVE" - Multiple 3D Animations created with JAVE and my VOBJ Vector Object Tool for Oldskool Demomaker.
 

VT-100 Text Animations

I started a small gallery with VT-100 Terminal Text Animations. There are currently only less than 10 items available, but this stuff is rare and hard to get :0. I am of course trying to get my hands and more of this stuff and will publish it here a.s.a.p. hehe.

Visit my VT-100 Animations Gallery.

 

ASCIImation Videos


Starpilots ASCIImation

The band with the name Starpilots created parts of their music video "Gasping for Air" as ASCII animation or ASCIImation.

This is only the ASCIImation part and the transition from normal video to ASCII. Not the whole music video is ASCIImation.

The transition from real video to ASCII was also nicely done.

Length: 1:37 minutes
Video on YouTube

Black Tambourine ASCIImation

ASCIImation music video for the song "Black Tambourine" by the popular musician and artist "Beck".

Virtually the entire video is using ASCIIanimation and is not limited in time or space to support and supplement the regular video parts. Well done!

Length: 3:08 minutes
Video on YouTube