• Adobe After Effects

  Halftone texture technique on contrast areas.

  Posted by Chris Jones on August 23, 2017 at 6:55 am

  Hey, I have a question about a technique I am trying to learn but can’t figure out.

  I am trying to create a similar halftone texture to my videos as the links below. You can see that the halftone style works around the contrast, but I am struggling to get the technique right. Any help!?

  https://vimeo.com/207087568

  https://vimeo.com/155262093

  (You might need to enlarge the image to see it properly.)

  

  

  

  Cheers,
  Chris

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  Chris Jones replied 8 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Steve Bentley

  August 23, 2017 at 7:58 pm

  First, watch the size of the screen – if it gets too small it will moire with the pixels of the video itself. The dots can also often sparkle if they get too small and the sub sampling changes slightly from frame to frame. If you ignore the sparkling stars in that first video you can see this happening with their screen over the space areas.
  A dot pattern that is slightly fuzzy will work better than a super sharp clean vector version. And an oversized dot pattern that you scale down in AE will help with the subpixel sampling and reduce sparkle and moire.

  As for the effect itself, try changing the blending method. Instead of using the dots as an alpha try overlaying the dots using multiply or hardlight or exclude. This will allow the dots to react to the level of light and color that is in the scene already, naturally giving areas where there are dots and areas where there arent. There is a keyboard shortcut that lets you quickly change that blend effect and see what you like.

  You could also premask the dots with a fractal noise so that some areas show and some don’t.,
  You can also play with exposure on an overall adjustment layer so that some areas “bloom” and the dots wash out in areas of high brightness. Combine these two techniques to mask the adjustment layer with the fractal noise or soft masks to control what areas bloom.

  Don’t make the dots 100 percent opaque.
• 

  Chris Jones

  August 29, 2017 at 4:15 am

  Hi Steve,

  Thanks for the advice and tips! Will try and action this.

  Cheers!
  Chris

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