Blender shader-based halftone CMYK offset printing emulation process | Hacker News Reader

Blender shader-based halftone CMYK offset printing emulation process

mrmotarius.itch.io

215 pointsCyMonk52 comments

Gorgeous. I'd love to see a side-scroller or roguelike type game in this visual style.

> MRMO-Halftone "Deluxe" version can be used in both non-commercial and commercial projects of any kind, excluding those relating to or containing non-fungible tokens ("NFT") or blockchain-related projects.

Warms my heart <3

Not free software, though, sadly.

Sometimes there are higher principles than free software.

What?

"This CMYK print emulation is free but the creator accepts your support by letting you pay what you think is fair for the CMYK print emulation."

I assume we’re talking here about Free Software (capitals important): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition

That's gratis but not libre. It's free from cost but not free as in freedom.

The license explicitly forbids using this for NFTs. Cut and pasted from the very end:

Licensing:

"Basic" version license: MRMO-Halftone "Basic" version can be used in non-commercial projects of any kind, excluding those relating to or containing non-fungible tokens ("NFT") or blockchain-related projects. You can modify it to suit your needs. You may not redistribute, or resell it, even if modified. Credit is not necessary, but very much appreciated.

"Deluxe" version license: MRMO-Halftone "Deluxe" version can be used in both non-commercial and commercial projects of any kind, excluding those relating to or containing non-fungible tokens ("NFT") or blockchain-related projects. You can modify them to suit your needs. You may not redistribute, or resell them, even if modified. Credit is not necessary, but very much appreciated.

That's one freedom I'm happy to see restricted. Let the lame NFT people find some other gimmick for their 1 millionth monkey-based ugly JPEG project.

That licensing section doesn't make sense to me. Blender is GPL, so add-ons must be GPL too: https://www.blender.org/about/license/

It's likely the case that the author doesn't understand that they can't encumber their users under the terms of the license granted to them.

> Sharing or selling Blender add-ons (Python scripts)

> Blender’s Python API is an integral part of the software, used to define the user interface or develop tools for example. The GNU GPL license therefore requires that such scripts (if published) are being shared under a GPL compatible license. You are free to sell such scripts, but the sales then is restricted to the download service itself. Your customers will receive the script under the same license (GPL), with the same free conditions as everyone has for Blender.

Merely using an API doesn't infect GPL software (for example, syscalls on an OS). The actual legal argument from the FSF on this point is more convoluted, and hinges on the plug-in being a derivative work in the legal sense. Whether this is true or not isn't settled.

It seems to me that the legal community leans in the direction that using an API doesn't make a work derivative in and of itself, and that transforming the actual work and redistributing the transformation (or the work itself) is required. It is however clearly a gray area.

Yeah...if that is the case, wouldn't nvidia graphic driver's kernel-shim-to-closed-source-binary not be legit, since the shim defines an API in the kernel and then the closed source blob uses that GPL'd API?

Precisely. Though perhaps NVidia would argue they're giving themselves a license exemption?

If you understand drivers as plugins (which makes sense, really, drivers are kernel plugins), and if you understand plugins as derivative, it would be even worse. It would mean every driver on Windows's copyright is Microsoft's by default. And that the original NVidia closed source is already GPL.

Not just NVIDIA, ZFS too. From the GPL perspective, any non GPL compatible license is considered the same way.

That said, that part of the GPL on library linking was never attempted to be enforced in court.

For additional entertainment: redistributing a linked GPL program to a non-GPL compatible non-OS bundled (those have an exception) library is supposed to be forbidden too, but is very often done. For example, for the Visual C++ runtimes.

It’s supposed to not be okay according to the FSF, which does quite some overreach in their FAQs. A reminder that the FAQs themselves are _not_ part of the license.

There is a way that Oracle could solve the ZFS situation; release a CDDLv2 that is compatible with the GPL, then the CDDLv1 auto-upgrade clause would mean that all CDDLv1 software that hasn't opted out of the upgrade clause would now be GPL compatible. Some parts of OpenZFS would need to be relicensed or reimplemented, but that job would be much smaller than reimplementing ZFS for GPL compatibility. More discussion here:

https://lwn.net/Articles/894901/

Drivers aren't plugins. They link to and incorporate GPL code. You can't grant special terms in that scenario. The best they can do is dual license their headers. The hazy area is where no linking happens and it's just a pure API without code sharing.

Do DKMS drivers have to include headers as redistributed? I was under the impression they didn't have to, but I have very little expertise with DKMS and could definitely be wrong.

Even linking isn't as clear cut as the FSF would like it to be.

Some kernel debelopers think that the Nvidia driver violates the copyright and should be GPLd.

Nobody has tested it in court yet.

Nvidia are already moving to a world where the Linux kernel driver is GPLed and in Linux mainline and only the firmware and userspace parts would be proprietary. So that potential GPL violation is in the process of being resolved. Eventually the signed proprietary firmware and the upstream Linux kernel driver would be shared between the proprietary nvidia driver and the open source nouveau driver. Of course they shoved parts of the Linux kernel driver into the proprietary firmware as part of the process, so....

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-sourc... https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2022/05/11/why-is-the-open-so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31345835

The bulk of a modern video driver on linux (and most operating systems) is not in the kernel. The kernel module just facilitates communication between the user space drivers in mesa and the hardware.

Right, but the GPL compliance issue (presumably) only applies to the Linux kernel part.

Ah true, good point.

Yes, I agree. However using an API that may-or-may-not be bound by the GPL is different (de facto) from using an API that the licensor claims is covered by the GPL. It's quite a bit more risky IMO.

> using an API doesn't make a work derivative in and of itself

Note that while it might be a gray area, there is some (recent) precedent [1]. Although a SCOTUS ruling isn't quite as binding as it used to be... :(

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....

IIRC that case isn't that the using an API makes it a derivative work, but that the API itself is copyrighted and that making an implementation of that API is a copyright violation (except for fair use, etc...).

EDIT: gpm is correct, they didn't arrive to such a conclusion.

> the API itself is copyrighted

They didn't decide either way on that question. To quote wikipedia "This conclusion rendered the need to evaluate the copyright of the API unnecessary".

Maybe the do understand but they’re trying it anyway. Most people will just follow what it says. NFT bros are not the sharpest tools in the box.

It is not settled that add-ons have to be GPL. The add-ons are python programs that do not contain or link against Blender code. Instead, they are called by Blender itself (and can call Blender python APIs). It's not much different from a Linux userspace program, for example.

There are reasonable arguments either way. For example, is an add-on for an electronics device that directly interfaces with the motherboard considered a derivative work? How about an accessory for some kind of tool? Like a plug in, they are useless without the original device, but does that make them derivative works that need permission to be distributed? We'd argue not for copyright of the designs of physical goods, so why would it be different for software?

There are clearly arguments either way and this isn't a settled matter.

This isn't an addon though, it's a node based material shader in a blend file.

Agreed, it can be licensed any which way. I just had a bit of an ax to grind.

No, worst case it just means you won't be able to redistribute blender + that addon.

Although the discussion around Blender add-ons and the GPL is interesting, this isn't an add-on and doesn't apply. It's a .blend scene, thus isn't bound by the GPL since it's an output from Blender. This is ultimately the equivalent of any other exported artwork, like a 3D model.

Below is the relevant part from that page:

> What you create with Blender is your sole property. All your artwork – images or movie files – including the .blend files and other data files Blender can write, is free for you to use as you like.

Gnu Emacs is GPL.

Many Emacs plugins are not.

> I'd love to see a side-scroller or roguelike type game in this visual style.

The license says "you may not distribute the shader even if you modify it", so I don't know if you could. Obviously you'd convert the shader to HLSL and simplify it for realtime, but the vague language doesn't make it clear to me if a reimplementation of the shader counts as your own thing, or as a derivative for the purposes of "you may not distribute". Though I highly suspect the author would give you a go-ahead if you just email him directly.

A bigger concern I have for animated content is that dithering usually looks horrible in motion. It might be perfect for a Myst-style game, though - something with very minimal movement.

Yup. If the author doesn't show examples with motion, it is pretty safe to say that it won't look well for animations. This most often does not come for free.

I follow the creator on Twitter and I am pretty sure that there are a couple of examples of animation that he has posted.

EDIT: here's the link:

https://twitter.com/MrmoTarius/status/1526290098781921280?cx...

Oh wow thanks for correcting me, that's really good! Should put that gif definitely on itch.io.

In the context of game assets, usually distribute in this sense means provide for download for other game devs to use, rather than include it in a published game. Generally speaking, asset artists are happy for you to modify their assets for use in your game (and often, it's necessary for game engine compatability or efficiency)

For anyone wanting to process individual images they could use Gimp's CMYK features.

There was a cool tweet using this on that note a bit ago: https://twitter.com/MrmoTarius/status/1527281714371866626

Surprised there's no equivalent in Reshade

Completely unnecessary, not to mention unenforceable.

It's unenforceable (the author even admits this) but a tonne of game asset artists have had their work stolen and resold as NFTs, and so a lot of them have started including this clause just to make it clear because when the NFT scammers disappear with the cash, the buyers often end up contacting the original artist (and more often than not, start making demands and threats)

Halftone webgl tutorial here: https://weber.itn.liu.se/~stegu/webglshadertutorial/shadertu...

Wow, this is a calibration mark and inky fingers away from perfect nostalgia.

Does the offset mismatch do rotation too?

Reminds me of when I started gaming there was a cRPG series called the 'gold box' - pools of radiance, curse of the azure bonds, secret of the silver swords, etc.

The first of these was in CGA (I guess corresponding to CMYK?) which was I think '4-bit'. Then 'Curse' was EGA and Silver Blades was VGA.

Ok on looking these up, its way more complicated than that. Still, those colours are a nostalgia trip...

This is very cool! Are there any libraries to do this with HTML elements? I'd love to do certain site content in a similar way.

I'd like to see this further developed, where the resolution is increased such that the halftone effect becomes invisible.

Nice, but weird to mix it with retro pixel art. Simultaneously simulating old print AND old screens?

Beautiful. Would love to see this ported to an engine.

This is insanely good! Will definitely buy this.

This looks gorgeous. A really clever idea

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