Skip to content
← components

ASCII Text

new

3D text rendered to a wavy three.js plane, then re-sampled every frame into live ASCII characters that shimmer and follow your cursor. From B3's ai-arena.

loading…

Usage

example.tsx
import { ASCIIText } from "~/components/ascii/ascii-text";
// fills its parent — give it a sized, positioned box
<div className="relative h-96">
<ASCIIText text="hello" enableWaves />
</div>

WebGL in, text out

The word is drawn to an offscreen 2D canvas, uploaded as a texture, and mapped onto a subdivided plane. A vertex shader pushes the vertices around on sine waves; a fragment shader splits the RGB channels by a hair so the edges shimmer. Standard three.js so far.

The ASCII step is the fun part. Every frame the rendered WebGL is drawn into a tiny canvas — one pixel per output character — and each pixel's brightness is read back and mapped to a glyph from a ramp that runs dark to light. The string lands in a <pre> with mix-blend-mode: difference and a gradient text fill. Cursor position drives the plane's rotation and a hue shift, so it tracks the mouse without any per-character work.

From B3's ai-arena, where it titled the HypeDuel arena. The original effect is from the React Bits community.

The full implementation, across 2 files. Copy it in or grab the zip. It leans on a cn() class helper and the theme tokens (--primary, --border, …).

components/ascii/ascii-text.tsx
import { useEffect, useState, type ComponentType } from "react";
import { cn } from "~/lib/utils";
export interface ASCIITextProps {
text?: string;
asciiFontSize?: number;
textFontSize?: number;
textColor?: string;
planeBaseHeight?: number;
enableWaves?: boolean;
/** CSS background used as the text fill (clipped to the glyphs). */
gradient?: string;
className?: string;
}
/**
* Client-only loader for the three.js ASCII text scene. The scene statically
* imports `three`, which must never run during Cloudflare Workers SSR — so it's
* pulled in with a dynamic import() inside useEffect, the same pattern the
* infinite-terrain scene uses.
*/
export function ASCIIText({ className, ...props }: ASCIITextProps) {
const [Scene, setScene] = useState<ComponentType<any> | null>(null);
useEffect(() => {
let alive = true;
import("./ascii-text-scene").then((m) => {
if (alive) setScene(() => m.default);
});
return () => {
alive = false;
};
}, []);
return (
<div className={cn("relative h-full w-full overflow-hidden", className)}>
{Scene ? (
<Scene {...props} />
) : (
<div className="absolute inset-0 grid place-items-center font-mono text-xs text-white/30">
loading…
</div>
)}
</div>
);
}
components/ascii/ascii-text-scene.tsx
// @ts-nocheck
// Vendored from B3's ai-arena (hypeduel) ASCIIText. Renders text to a hidden
// canvas, maps it onto a wavy three.js plane, then re-samples the WebGL output
// into an ASCII <pre>. Restyled: the fill gradient is a CSS var (`--ascii-grad`)
// so the loader can theme it. three only — no r3f. Loaded client-side only.
import { useRef, useEffect } from "react";
import * as THREE from "three";
const vertexShader = `
varying vec2 vUv;
uniform float uTime;
uniform float mouse;
uniform float uEnableWaves;
void main() {
vUv = uv;
float time = uTime * 5.;
float waveFactor = uEnableWaves;
vec3 transformed = position;
transformed.x += sin(time + position.y) * 0.5 * waveFactor;
transformed.y += cos(time + position.z) * 0.15 * waveFactor;
transformed.z += sin(time + position.x) * waveFactor;
gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4(transformed, 1.0);
}
`;
const fragmentShader = `
varying vec2 vUv;
uniform float mouse;
uniform float uTime;
uniform sampler2D uTexture;
void main() {
float time = uTime;
vec2 pos = vUv;
float r = texture2D(uTexture, pos + cos(time * 2. - time + pos.x) * .01).r;
float g = texture2D(uTexture, pos + tan(time * .5 + pos.x - time) * .01).g;
float b = texture2D(uTexture, pos - cos(time * 2. + time + pos.y) * .01).b;
float a = texture2D(uTexture, pos).a;
gl_FragColor = vec4(r, g, b, a);
}
`;
function map(n, start, stop, start2, stop2) {
return ((n - start) / (stop - start)) * (stop2 - start2) + start2;
}
const PX_RATIO = typeof window !== "undefined" ? window.devicePixelRatio : 1;
class AsciiFilter {
constructor(renderer, { fontSize, fontFamily, charset, invert } = {}) {
this.renderer = renderer;
this.domElement = document.createElement("div");
this.domElement.style.position = "absolute";
this.domElement.style.top = "0";
this.domElement.style.left = "0";
this.domElement.style.width = "100%";
this.domElement.style.height = "100%";
this.pre = document.createElement("pre");
this.domElement.appendChild(this.pre);
this.canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
this.context = this.canvas.getContext("2d");
this.domElement.appendChild(this.canvas);
this.deg = 0;
this.invert = invert ?? true;
this.fontSize = fontSize ?? 12;
this.fontFamily = fontFamily ?? "'Courier New', monospace";
this.charset =
charset ??
" .'`^\",:;Il!i~+_-?][}{1)(|/tfjrxnuvczXYUJCLQ0OZmwqpdbkhao*#MW&8%B@$";
if (this.context) this.context.imageSmoothingEnabled = false;
this.onMouseMove = this.onMouseMove.bind(this);
document.addEventListener("mousemove", this.onMouseMove);
}
setSize(width, height) {
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
this.renderer.setSize(width, height);
this.reset();
this.center = { x: width / 2, y: height / 2 };
this.mouse = { x: this.center.x, y: this.center.y };
}
reset() {
if (!this.context) return;
this.context.font = `${this.fontSize}px ${this.fontFamily}`;
const charWidth = this.context.measureText("A").width;
this.cols = Math.floor(
this.width / (this.fontSize * (charWidth / this.fontSize)),
);
this.rows = Math.floor(this.height / this.fontSize);
this.canvas.width = this.cols;
this.canvas.height = this.rows;
this.pre.style.fontFamily = this.fontFamily;
this.pre.style.fontSize = `${this.fontSize}px`;
this.pre.style.margin = "0";
this.pre.style.padding = "0";
this.pre.style.lineHeight = "1em";
this.pre.style.position = "absolute";
this.pre.style.left = "50%";
this.pre.style.top = "50%";
this.pre.style.transform = "translate(-50%, -50%)";
this.pre.style.zIndex = "9";
this.pre.style.backgroundAttachment = "fixed";
this.pre.style.mixBlendMode = "difference";
}
render(scene, camera) {
this.renderer.render(scene, camera);
const w = this.canvas.width;
const h = this.canvas.height;
if (!this.context) return;
this.context.clearRect(0, 0, w, h);
if (w && h) this.context.drawImage(this.renderer.domElement, 0, 0, w, h);
this.asciify(this.context, w, h);
this.hue();
}
onMouseMove(e) {
this.mouse = { x: e.clientX * PX_RATIO, y: e.clientY * PX_RATIO };
}
get dx() {
return this.mouse.x - this.center.x;
}
get dy() {
return this.mouse.y - this.center.y;
}
hue() {
const deg = (Math.atan2(this.dy, this.dx) * 180) / Math.PI;
this.deg += (deg - this.deg) * 0.075;
this.domElement.style.filter = `hue-rotate(${this.deg.toFixed(1)}deg)`;
}
asciify(ctx, w, h) {
if (!(w && h)) return;
const imgData = ctx.getImageData(0, 0, w, h).data;
let str = "";
for (let y = 0; y < h; y++) {
for (let x = 0; x < w; x++) {
const i = x * 4 + y * 4 * w;
const r = imgData[i];
const g = imgData[i + 1];
const b = imgData[i + 2];
const a = imgData[i + 3];
if (a === 0) {
str += " ";
continue;
}
const gray = (0.3 * r + 0.6 * g + 0.1 * b) / 255;
let idx = Math.floor((1 - gray) * (this.charset.length - 1));
if (this.invert) idx = this.charset.length - idx - 1;
str += this.charset[idx];
}
str += "\n";
}
this.pre.innerHTML = str;
}
dispose() {
document.removeEventListener("mousemove", this.onMouseMove);
}
}
class CanvasTxt {
constructor(txt, { fontSize = 200, fontFamily = "Arial", color = "#fdf9f3" } = {}) {
this.canvas = document.createElement("canvas");
this.context = this.canvas.getContext("2d");
this.txt = txt;
this.fontSize = fontSize;
this.fontFamily = fontFamily;
this.color = color;
this.font = `600 ${this.fontSize}px ${this.fontFamily}`;
}
resize() {
if (!this.context) return;
this.context.font = this.font;
const metrics = this.context.measureText(this.txt);
const textWidth = Math.ceil(metrics.width) + 20;
const textHeight =
Math.ceil(
metrics.actualBoundingBoxAscent + metrics.actualBoundingBoxDescent,
) + 20;
this.canvas.width = textWidth;
this.canvas.height = textHeight;
}
render() {
if (!this.context) return;
this.context.clearRect(0, 0, this.canvas.width, this.canvas.height);
this.context.fillStyle = this.color;
this.context.font = this.font;
const metrics = this.context.measureText(this.txt);
const yPos = 10 + metrics.actualBoundingBoxAscent;
this.context.fillText(this.txt, 10, yPos);
}
get width() {
return this.canvas.width;
}
get height() {
return this.canvas.height;
}
get texture() {
return this.canvas;
}
}
class CanvAscii {
constructor(
{ text, asciiFontSize, textFontSize, textColor, planeBaseHeight, enableWaves },
containerElem,
width,
height,
) {
this.textString = text;
this.asciiFontSize = asciiFontSize;
this.textFontSize = textFontSize;
this.textColor = textColor;
this.planeBaseHeight = planeBaseHeight;
this.container = containerElem;
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
this.enableWaves = enableWaves;
this.camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(45, this.width / this.height, 1, 1000);
this.camera.position.z = 30;
this.scene = new THREE.Scene();
this.mouse = { x: 0, y: 0 };
this.animationFrameId = 0;
this.onMouseMove = this.onMouseMove.bind(this);
this.setMesh();
this.setRenderer();
}
setMesh() {
this.textCanvas = new CanvasTxt(this.textString, {
fontSize: this.textFontSize,
fontFamily: "IBM Plex Mono",
color: this.textColor,
});
this.textCanvas.resize();
this.textCanvas.render();
this.texture = new THREE.CanvasTexture(this.textCanvas.texture);
this.texture.minFilter = THREE.NearestFilter;
const textAspect = this.textCanvas.width / this.textCanvas.height;
const baseH = this.planeBaseHeight;
const planeW = baseH * textAspect;
this.geometry = new THREE.PlaneGeometry(planeW, baseH, 36, 36);
this.material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({
vertexShader,
fragmentShader,
transparent: true,
uniforms: {
uTime: { value: 0 },
mouse: { value: 1.0 },
uTexture: { value: this.texture },
uEnableWaves: { value: this.enableWaves ? 1.0 : 0.0 },
},
});
this.mesh = new THREE.Mesh(this.geometry, this.material);
this.scene.add(this.mesh);
}
setRenderer() {
this.renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer({ antialias: false, alpha: true });
this.renderer.setPixelRatio(1);
this.renderer.setClearColor(0x000000, 0);
this.filter = new AsciiFilter(this.renderer, {
fontFamily: "IBM Plex Mono",
fontSize: this.asciiFontSize,
invert: true,
});
this.container.appendChild(this.filter.domElement);
this.setSize(this.width, this.height);
this.container.addEventListener("mousemove", this.onMouseMove);
this.container.addEventListener("touchmove", this.onMouseMove);
}
setSize(w, h) {
this.width = w;
this.height = h;
this.camera.aspect = w / h;
this.camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
this.filter.setSize(w, h);
this.center = { x: w / 2, y: h / 2 };
}
load() {
this.animate();
}
onMouseMove(evt) {
const e = evt.touches ? evt.touches[0] : evt;
const bounds = this.container.getBoundingClientRect();
this.mouse = { x: e.clientX - bounds.left, y: e.clientY - bounds.top };
}
animate() {
const animateFrame = () => {
this.animationFrameId = requestAnimationFrame(animateFrame);
this.render();
};
animateFrame();
}
render() {
const time = new Date().getTime() * 0.001;
this.textCanvas.render();
this.texture.needsUpdate = true;
this.mesh.material.uniforms.uTime.value = Math.sin(time);
this.updateRotation();
this.filter.render(this.scene, this.camera);
}
updateRotation() {
const x = map(this.mouse.y, 0, this.height, 0.5, -0.5);
const y = map(this.mouse.x, 0, this.width, -0.5, 0.5);
this.mesh.rotation.x += (x - this.mesh.rotation.x) * 0.05;
this.mesh.rotation.y += (y - this.mesh.rotation.y) * 0.05;
}
clear() {
this.scene.traverse((object) => {
const obj = object;
if (!obj.isMesh) return;
[obj.material].flat().forEach((material) => {
material.dispose();
Object.keys(material).forEach((key) => {
const matProp = material[key];
if (matProp && typeof matProp === "object" && typeof matProp.dispose === "function") {
matProp.dispose();
}
});
});
obj.geometry.dispose();
});
this.scene.clear();
}
dispose() {
cancelAnimationFrame(this.animationFrameId);
this.filter.dispose();
this.container.removeChild(this.filter.domElement);
this.container.removeEventListener("mousemove", this.onMouseMove);
this.container.removeEventListener("touchmove", this.onMouseMove);
this.clear();
this.renderer.dispose();
}
}
export default function ASCIITextScene({
text = "hello",
asciiFontSize = 8,
textFontSize = 200,
textColor = "#fdf9f3",
planeBaseHeight = 8,
enableWaves = true,
gradient = "radial-gradient(circle, #7dd3fc 0%, #818cf8 50%, #e879f9 100%)",
}) {
const containerRef = useRef(null);
const asciiRef = useRef(null);
useEffect(() => {
if (!containerRef.current) return;
const opts = { text, asciiFontSize, textFontSize, textColor, planeBaseHeight, enableWaves };
const { width, height } = containerRef.current.getBoundingClientRect();
const start = (w, h) => {
asciiRef.current = new CanvAscii(opts, containerRef.current, w, h);
asciiRef.current.load();
};
if (width === 0 || height === 0) {
const observer = new IntersectionObserver(
([entry]) => {
const r = entry.boundingClientRect;
if (entry.isIntersecting && r.width > 0 && r.height > 0) {
start(r.width, r.height);
observer.disconnect();
}
},
{ threshold: 0.1 },
);
observer.observe(containerRef.current);
return () => {
observer.disconnect();
asciiRef.current?.dispose();
};
}
start(width, height);
const ro = new ResizeObserver((entries) => {
if (!entries[0] || !asciiRef.current) return;
const { width: w, height: h } = entries[0].contentRect;
if (w > 0 && h > 0) asciiRef.current.setSize(w, h);
});
ro.observe(containerRef.current);
return () => {
ro.disconnect();
asciiRef.current?.dispose();
};
}, [text, asciiFontSize, textFontSize, textColor, planeBaseHeight, enableWaves]);
return (
<div
ref={containerRef}
className="ascii-text-container"
style={{ position: "absolute", inset: 0, ["--ascii-grad"]: gradient }}
>
<style>{`
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@500&display=swap');
.ascii-text-container canvas {
position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;
image-rendering: pixelated;
}
.ascii-text-container pre {
margin: 0; padding: 0; line-height: 1em; text-align: left;
user-select: none; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0;
background-image: var(--ascii-grad);
background-attachment: fixed;
-webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;
-webkit-background-clip: text;
background-clip: text;
z-index: 9; mix-blend-mode: difference;
}
`}</style>
</div>
);
}