Rustrix / Matrix Animation 💻

A highly performant and customizable terminal animation that simulates the iconic "digital rain" effect from The Matrix. Built in Rust, this application leverages the crossterm and tokio libraries to create a smooth, responsive, and resource-efficient visual experience that reacts in real-time to terminal resizing and user input. This code is based on Matrix Animation golang version, see HuGoRain

✨ Features

• Asynchronous: Built on the tokio runtime, ensuring a non-blocking and highly responsive animation loop.
• Fully Customizable: Easily change the color theme, character set, speed, and density using command-line arguments.
• Real-time Responsiveness: The animation dynamically adjusts to terminal resizing without a hitch.
• Automatic Background Detection: The program can automatically detect your terminal's background color to create seamless, fading drop trails.
• Multiple Character Sets: Choose from predefined sets like binary, emojis, or Kanji, or provide your own.

⚙️ How to Run

Prerequisites

• Rust and Cargo installed on your system.

Running from source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/hugomf/rustrix.git
   cd rustrix
   

2. Run the application:

   cargo run --release
   

   Note: Using --release is highly recommended for optimal performance.

Command-line Flags

You can customize the animation using the following flags. Use --list to see all available options.

• --color <NAME>

  • Sets the color theme.
  • Available Colors: green (default), amber, red, orange, blue, purple, cyan, pink, white.
  • Example: cargo run -- --color blue

• --chars <NAME>

  • Specifies the character set to use.
  • Available Sets: matrix (default), binary, symbols, emojis, kanji, greek, cyrillic.
  • Example: cargo run -- --chars emojis

• --speed <VALUE>

  • Controls the animation speed. Higher values mean faster animation.
  • Default: 5.0.
  • Example: cargo run -- --speed 20.0 (insanely fast)

• --density <VALUE>

  • Adjusts the number of drops on the screen. Higher values result in more drops.
  • Default: 0.7.
  • Example: cargo run -- --density 1.5 (heavy density)

• --background-color <R,G,B>

  • Manually sets the background color for accurate color fading. By default, it will attempt to detect the terminal's background color.
  • Example: cargo run -- --background-color 0,0,0 (black)

• --list

  • Displays all available options and their values.
  • Example: cargo run -- --list

Example Usage

# Run with a fast, purple-colored binary drop
cargo run --release -- --color purple --chars binary --speed 10.0

# Run with a heavy density of Kanji characters
cargo run --release -- --chars kanji --density 1.2