Matrix digital rain, Matrix code or sometimes green rain, is a fictional code first seen in the popular film The Matrix (1999) on the computer screens of the Nebuchadnezzar. All three Matrix movies, as well as all the spin-off Animatrix episodes, open with the code. It is considered a characteristic mark of the franchise, more or less like the opening crawl text is for Star Wars.

In the films, a few people can understand what happens inside the Matrix by looking at a computer monitor. Operators from Zion, unable to jack into the Matrix, concentrate ways to read the scrolling code, or "rain", and infer data from it such as the location of a person in the City, possible exits, and so forth. The character Neo is the only human that can see the code of which avatars are composed while in the Matrix, and is therefore able to see their "true" digital form. By contrast, some programs are not seen as part of the green code, but as golden code (e.g., Seraph).

The code is characterized by green flashing Roman and Katakana characters and Arabic numerals, as well as pictoral symbols, such as a bull's head, falling in a black screen while changing and fading. The effect resembles that of the older green screen displays, since the letters leave a fluorescent trace on the screen.

In pop culture

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Because of the popularity of the movies, the effect has become noted in itself and a part of pop culture. It has influenced other franchises and has been used in new-tech advertisements, TV spots, video-clips, posters and appeared in other high-tech topics, such as some scenes in Code Lyoko. There are several screensavers based on it, like XMatrix and GLMatrix found in the XScreenSaver collection.

The flash intro of cyberpunk fashion site http://www.cyberdog.net/ presents a simplified version of the digital rain

A horizontally-scrolling variation of the "rain" can be seen briefly in the 2001 film Swordfish, where a character creates digital encryption code. Movie producer Joel Silver was involved in both projects.

Trivia

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The "Matrix code" can be seen in an earlier movie Alien (1979, directed by Ridley Scott). There is a scene where Captain Dallas is "talking" with Mother and the "Matrix code" can be seen (even the word 'matrix' is written in the Mother Program main menu screen). Another similarity is where Lt. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is seen looking at a monitor with a "green (matrix) code" and she is interpretating the code and understands that the transmission was no S.O.S. but a warning.

The 1995 Cyberpunk film Ghost in the Shell's opening credits are known to have influenced the digital rain, among many other aspects of The Matrix.

In the 1996 movie Independence Day, a code scrolling effect very similar to that of the Matrix code can be seen on the cockpit monitors of the alien flying saucer that was captured by the U.S. government.

In Path of Neo game the player can press up on the d-pad (on the PlayStation 2 version) and the world would turn into this "code vision." A similar effect is seen when the game is paused.

In the computer game Deus Ex, there is a cheat, known as 'may-tricks mode', which replaces all in-game textures with a constantly scrolling form of digital rain.

Sound designer Dane A. Davis digitized raindrops against window panes to create the sound of the letters as they rotate and fall.

No official version of the source code typeface actually used in the Matrix trilogy and in the website for the game Path of Neo has been released. Several imitations have been made.

External links

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• Official screensaver - digital rain for both Mac and Windows
• Fan Screensaver - One of the most accurate matrix-style screensavers. (Still in development)
• Fan Screensaver 2 - Another very accurate matrix-style screensaver.
• Guide to create the Matrix effect in Photoshop

Graphic design | Matrix series | Cyberpunk | Film and television opening sequences