After Hours: A 3D City Rendered in ASCII

Matthew Berman shows a generated city made of text characters and says it was built with Astra.

MBMatthew BermanSpeaker · Forward Future
Channel
Matthew Berman
Published
Sep 14, 2026
Video
0:31
Read
1 min
Slides
1
Original
English
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SUMMARY

In 30 seconds

In this short demo, Matthew Berman walks through After Hours, a 3D city rendered with ASCII characters. He says he used Astra and roughly two prompts to build it, and describes the environment as generating new scenery as he walks. The clip does not independently establish an infinite world.

  1. 1A city made of charactersBerman says Astra created the 3D city, called After Hours, using ASCII characters.
  2. 2A brief creation processHe estimates that it took two prompts.
  3. 3A generative environmentHe points to people and rain and says the world continues to populate as he walks.

Takeaways

  1. After Hours renders a city scene using ASCII characters.
  2. Berman says he used Astra and approximately two prompts to create it.
  3. The short shows a rainy city with moving people.
  4. Berman says the world generates more scenery as he walks; the clip does not test infinite extent.
FULL TEXT

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Transcript only
01

After Hours in ASCII

Berman introduces a 3D city made of characters. He says he created it with Astra.

I had Astra create a 3D city using only ASCII characters. It’s called After Hours. You can walk through it, and if you look closely, the whole scene is made of little characters.

02

Walking through the city

He estimates it took two prompts and shows a rainy, populated environment. He says the scene generates as he walks.

ASCII city scene
SLIDE 1 / 1ASCII city sceneThe demonstration renders buildings and a street with text characters.

I think this took two prompts. People are walking around and it’s raining. The environment is generative: I say I can keep walking and it will keep populating the world, though the short clip does not establish an infinite extent.

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