ASCII video plug-in?

December 3, 2021 9:49 AM

I’m making a video and would love for a few shots to have ASCII animation. Is there a plug-in for iMovie that would allow me to convert some of the shots to ASCII?
posted by pxe2000 to Technology (3 answers total)

I don't know anything about iMovie, but this github project has a lot of details and some convincing looking examples.
posted by adekllny at 9:57 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

If there is, it would be something that makes use of aalib. Plugins which enable use of this library in vlc and mplayer have been around for a while now.

Maybe you could do the conversion in VLC for MacOS and then import the resulting file into iMovie?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:14 AM on December 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

Does iMovie still allow "Export to Image Sequence" when you save a project? If so, this may work:

1) Export the sequence from iMovie
2) Load those images into M(a)c GIMP using "File > Open as Layers"
3) Go to Filters and open G'MIC to use its really cool Ascii Art filter, which has a lot of really neat options, like which characters you want to use for rendering, whether you want a transparent background, B&W only, etc.
4) Set "Input Layers" in G'MIC to "All" and "Output Mode" to "New Image"
5) Export the image from McGIMP as an Animated GIF
6) Import the animated .gif into iMovie
posted by circular at 2:26 PM on December 3, 2021 [2 favorites]