AT

ASCII shader system

From moving light to symbols.

The shader makes a tiny grayscale image. The ASCII layer samples that image, adds dither, then chooses symbols. Hover and click operate on the same grid.

01 / Pipeline

Shader field to glyph field

Fragment shader noise + ripple falloff + time gray field Read pixels tiny canvas one cell each brightness Quantize brightness + Bayer dither symbol index · + * ✶

02 / Sampling

Cells sample light.

Each grid cell reads local brightness. Dense light becomes dense symbols.

03 / Dither

Threshold pattern breaks bands.

A Bayer matrix nudges neighboring cells differently, then time adds a small motion term.

04 / Interaction

Hover and click edit grid state.

Hover turns cells on. Click injects energy into a small damped wave simulation.

05 / Pave card mark

Same shader, logo mask.

The card mark samples the same field, but only emits symbols inside a Pave-shaped mask.