Motion ASCII guide

Start

The tool opens on its moving test pattern, drawn in colour with the Classic set. The line under the video button reads Test pattern and the size of the grid, such as 240 × 284 cells.

What you need

• A current browser. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all draw it.
• A video, if you want your own: MP4, WebM, MOV or M4V that your browser can play, up to 250 MB. You do not need one to try the settings; the test pattern plays until you choose.

Your first result

1. Open Motion ASCII. The test pattern is already moving.
2. Press Choose or drop a video, or drop a video anywhere on the page. It plays at once, with no sound, over and over. Or keep the test pattern.
3. Under Glyphs, pick a Character set and an ink: Color, Green, Amber or Mono.
4. Under Tone, move Contrast and Brightness until the shapes read clearly.
5. Hover over the picture, or press and drag on it, to look through the loupe.
6. Press Save frame at the top of the panel for a PNG, or Download video for a clip.

Good to know

• Lower Resolution for bigger, easier to read characters; raise it for more detail.
• Pause freezes the grid and the video; press it again to go on. Restart goes back to the start.
• The loupe never appears in the PNG or the video.
• On phones and touch screens the tool opens at 160 columns instead of 240, with a smaller loupe. Every slider keeps its full range.
• On a phone the controls sit in a bar at the bottom of the screen. Tap the bar to open them.