A quiet data overlay: the picture stays whole underneath and a thin scatter of brackets and letters gathers only where the light is, so a flat field reads clean and a bloom or a plume reads as code. Replace the image or video, then edit the glyph set, the grid, the tonal window, the ink and the glyph opacity.
How this texture works
Code Mist keeps your picture whole and scatters a thin layer of brackets and letters over its brightest parts. The Character ramp is mostly spaces followed by (x)[i];, so flat or dark areas get no characters at all, and a light source, a bloom or a plume of smoke fills with code. The ink is a single warm white in mono, slightly transparent, so the effect reads as an overlay rather than a full ASCII rendering.
Tips
- Remove a few of the leading spaces in the Character ramp to let the code spread from the highlights into the midtones.
- Lower Photo background to dim the picture underneath and make the code the main subject.
- Columns sets the size of the characters. Around 76 keeps them readable; much higher turns them into texture.
- Switch Colour to original and each character takes the colour of the pixels under it.
Questions
How do I add a code overlay to a photo?
Load your image or video into the Image slot. This preset leaves the picture visible and only places characters where it is bright, so it works as an overlay without any extra setup. Type your own symbols into the Character ramp to change the kind of code it shows.
Why are there no characters in the dark parts of my image?
The ramp maps dark tones to spaces on purpose. Shorten the run of spaces at its start, or raise Brightness, and characters appear in darker areas too.