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AnimByte

1-byte character rendering engine for terminal animation. Minimal API. Flat buffer. High-speed output. website: https://animbyte.vercel.app/

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Overview

AnimByte is a C++ engine for terminal-based rendering using pure ASCII characters.

• Each cell = 1 byte
• Flat buffer (width × height)
• Delta tracking (only changed cells tracked)
• Single write() syscall per frame
• No external dependencies

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Core Design

• Flat Buffer Continuous char* array → cache-friendly, predictable

• Delta Tracking Set_Char() pushes only changed cells into a list

• Frame Generation Buffer → newline-delimited string

• Rendering \033[H + single write() → no flicker, no clear

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API

Initialise

int Initialise(int width, int height);

Allocates buffer of size width × height

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Set_Char

int Set_Char(int row, int col, char ch);

• 1-based indexing
• Skips if unchanged
• Tracks modified cells

Returns:

• 0 → written
• -1 → out-of-bounds or no-op

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Render_Frame

int Render_Frame();

• Builds full frame string
• Writes to terminal using single syscall

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Frame_Clean

int Frame_Clean();

• Resets only modified cells to ' '
• Uses dirty list

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Usage

#include "AnimByte.cpp"

int main() {
    AnimByte ab;
    ab.Initialise(80, 24);

    while(true){
        ab.Frame_Clean();

        ab.Set_Char(12, 40, '@');

        ab.Render_Frame();
        usleep(16000); // ~60 FPS
    }
}

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Properties

• Memory: width × height bytes
• Rendering: full-frame write
• Update cost: O(d) (d = changed cells)
• Dependencies: none (STL + unistd)

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Notes

• Performance depends on terminal + system
• Can exceed 100+ FPS under optimal conditions
• No color / ANSI styling (pure character rendering)

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Philosophy

No abstraction. No widgets. Just characters.

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License

Open source. Use freely.

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direct cpp recomended - you can use compile it for .h also: your call