Simple MSG LineScreen Halftone Effect

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Simple MSG LineScreen Halftone Effect

Since we’ve been on a thread with recent posts discussing exotic halftone processing using space filling curves as halftone screens, I thought it would be instructional to put together a much simpler traditional line screen color halftone effect. This post will show you how to build this simple MSG effect, and might provide some additional insight into the more exotic processing used in the examples shown over the past few posts.

The image below shows the MSG Advanced Editor processor chain used to build the simple line screen effect shown above.

PLEASE NOTE THERE ARE A LOT OF HALF TONING PRESETS IN THE FOLLOWING MODES

PAINT SYNTHESIZER > AUTO PAINT > LINE SCREEN – HALF TONES – BLOCK PRINTS

IMAGE OPERATIONS > LINE SCREEN

VECTORIZER > LINE SCREENS

PASEQ > FLAT – CARTOON – LINE SCREENS

The Generator processor is configured to generate a simple 1D sin wave pattern, as shown in the 2nd gallery image above. The 3rd gallery image shows that the Generator processor is routing it’s output to the Tmp Img image stream (and I used this preset variation to show you the line screen pattern the Generator processor was generating).

Note in the 1st gallery image that the Tmg Img stream is hooked up to the Modulate In IO (input-output) connection for the 3 ThresholdMod processors. The ThresholdMod processor uses it’s Modulate In image stream as a halftone screen for thresholding. So the line screen pattern shown in the 2nd gallery image above is used as the halftone screen for all 3 R,G,B color fields that are individual processed by the 3 ThresholdMod processors.

This MSG preset is about as simple a color halftone preset as you could generate. As discussed in the past few posts, you can use the ForceColorMap as a final processor if you want to introduce exotic coloring effects based on color palette mapping into a color halftone effect. The gallery below shows what I mean by this kind of additional colorization effect, and shows you how you could build it.

You could also combine together 2 different Generator processors to build a more complicated screening pattern, as shown below. The 2 different Generator processor outputs are routed to Tmp Img and Tmp Img1 image streams respectively, and then composted together into the Tmp Img stream using the 1C Composite processor. The pattern in the Tmp Img stream (created by combining together 2 different angular oriented sin wave patterns) is then used as the halftone screen (the Modulate In stream) for the 3 ThresholdMod processors that screen the individual R,G,B channels for the effect.

The Generator processors are capable of creating much more interesting patterns than the simple line screen 1D sin wave patterns used in these simple screening example. You can always work with the Evolution Editor to get a feel for the extreme variability in the patterning they can generate.
Understanding halftone screening effects is very important for building all kinds of different digital lithography and screen printing simulation effects. Hopefully the recent posts are helping you get your head wrapped around how to create these effects, from the simple (with today’s post) to the more exotic (some of the previous posts).

Category: MSG

Tags: halftone line screen

Simple MSG LineScreen Halftone Effect

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