ASCII Ghost

ASCII art whose characters cycle over time and leave fading ghost trails; Cell Size sets character size, Speed the cycling rate.

Group: Text & Glyph · How to add an effect

ASCII Ghost on an enlarged detail of the dancer on a dark stage: the original on the left, ASCII Ghost at its default settings on the right — Left: the original. Right: ASCII Ghost at its default settings, one frame of its movement. An enlarged detail, so the characters can be read.

A short page made from the editor’s effect catalog: what the effect does and its controls. Tips and its node setup will follow.

Controls

Control	Range	Default
Grid
Cell Size	4 to 72 px	14 px
Style
Amount	0 to 1	1
Background	0 to 1	0.2
Black Level	0 to 0.9	0
Invert Ramp	on or off	off
Glyphs
Ramp (Used while Custom Ramp is empty)	Standard, Detailed, Blocks, Bars, Binary and 2 more	Standard
Custom Ramp	text	empty
Font	Monospace, Serif, Sans Serif	Monospace
Weight	200 to 900	600
Color
Color Source	Source, Duotone	Source
Dark (Used with Color Source Duotone)	a colour	`#081018`
Light (Used with Color Source Duotone)	a colour	`#e8fff5`
Motion
Speed	0 to 5	1
Roll	0 to 1	1
Reset Trail	on or off	off
General
History Loop	Reset, Continuous	Reset

Technical details

It builds on its own earlier frames, so its trails grow during playback; History Loop sets whether they start again when playback jumps back to the loop start. How effects are stored, rendered and exported: Effect system. Its building blocks: Node Catalog.