VinZ

VinZ (Yes, named after myself :DD) is a procedural terminal graphics engine. It draws mathematical fluid simulations and ASCII art directly into your terminal using 24-bit ANSI colors. It supports both half-block character resolution and dynamically generated ASCII matrices.

It is written in C, fully interactive, and designed to provide a trippy visual experience in the command line.

VinZ now features a custom built 3D vector math and raymarching engine written completely from scratch. Without relying on any external graphics APIs (like OpenGL or Vulkan), VinZ mathematically simulates 3D space, calculates lighting, and renders dynamic geometry.

• Interactive UI: Control palettes and visual styles in real-time.
• Procedural Randomizer: Press R to generate an entirely unique, randomized mathematical shader on the fly. Share your favorite creations using the displayed seed.
• 10 2D Visual Styles:
• 8 3D Visual Styles (NEW): Powered by a custom 3D vector math and raymarching engine.
• 20 Color Palettes:
• True Color (24-bit RGB): Renders incredibly smooth gradients and shadows.
• Double-Vertical Resolution: Utilizes the half-block character to double vertical fidelity.
• Fast: Written in C, using single buffer writes to avoid terminal flickering and achieve high FPS.

Just paste this into your terminal. It will download, compile, and install VinZ automatically:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vinz-ux/VinZ/main/install.sh | bash

yay -S vinz-git
# or
paru -S vinz-git

git clone https://github.com/vinz-ux/VinZ.git
cd VinZ
make
sudo make install

(This will install the executable as vinz to your system path).

Run the program simply by typing:

vinz

Once running, use your keyboard to change the visuals:

• W / S (or Up/Down Arrows) : Change Visual Style (Pattern)
• A / D (or Left/Right Arrows) : Change Color Palette
• T : Toggle 3D Raymarching Engine (NEW)
• R : Generate a new Procedural Shader on the fly
• H : Hide or Show the UI menu at the bottom
• Q (or Ctrl+C) : Quit

You can also start it with specific settings using flags:

Usage: vinz [OPTIONS]
Options:
  -s, --speed <float>    Animation speed multiplier (default: 1.0)
  -p, --palette <int>    Starting color palette (0-19)
  -m, --style <int>      Starting style mode (0-9)
  -r, --seed <int>       Load a specific procedural generation seed
  -h, --help             Show help message

Examples:

Start directly in the "Digital Rain" style with the "Matrix" palette:

vinz -m 4 -p 1

Load a specific, randomly generated mathematical shader:

vinz -r 481023

• A modern terminal emulator with true-color (24-bit) support (e.g., Alacritty, Kitty, WezTerm, GNOME Terminal, Konsole).
• A C compiler (gcc or clang).