Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Rendering Basics / Render Settings: Anti-Alias
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Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Rendering Basics / Render Settings: Anti-Alias)
The next tab in Render Settings is Anti-Alias. Anti-Aliasing creates smooth edges around objects and textures so that the scene appears to have a higher resolution than the number of pixels it actually contains. You have three choices; None, Adaptive and Oversample. Let's talk about Oversample first. The Oversample Method creates very smooth edges and textures and is probably the best method to use for video or film work. As you might guess by its name, Oversampling is a method that processes the data repeatedly to create a smooth average for the pixels it's rendering. This method is especially useful for motion because it has the best chance at removing jittering or small pixel discrepancies from frame to frame. The other method, Adaptive, gives you sharper-looking images but very often at the cost of smooth-looking motion. So you might decide that Adaptive Anti-Aliasing is best reserved for still work like for conceptual renderings or a product shot. Let's take a look at some examples. The top two images are examples of Default Oversample and Anti-Aliasing and Default Adaptive Anti-Aliasing. And you might be able to see the difference between the two, especially around this hot reflection here in both renders. But let's take a closer look and we'll get the Magnifying Tool and get a little bit closer in both of these renders. The Anti-Alias edges in the Oversample Method are much smoother in the transition from the edge to whatever's behind it is a little softer and a tiny bit thicker. Also notice the texture map, the number 5 looks a little bit soft compared to the Adaptive Method which has a much sharper look, especially around this reflection. The reason it's called adaptive is because the Anti-Aliasing procedure is adapted to within a threshold that you can set arbitrarily with these fields. So in this rendering with the default value set for Adaptive Anti-Aliasing, the threshold is the full 8-bit range of luminance; 0 to 255. So it's applying the same Anti-Aliasing to the entire scene and giving us a sharper result. In this render, Adaptive Anti-Aliasing is used but the threshold's been changed so it's gone from 0 to 80 and we'll zoom in on this one as well. Our reflection's a little bit softer but not quite as soft as in the Oversample Method. Using this method is basically setting a contrast range defined by the threshold values that you want Electric Image to use for Anti-Aliasing. Now, if I change the minimum threshold to let's say 50, then anything below that number will receive even less Anti-Aliasing. So this threshold range from 50 to 80 receives the median amount of Anti-Aliasing. Anything above 80 gets more Anti-Aliasing; anything below 50 gets a small amount of Anti-Aliasing. Both methods, Oversample and Adaptive, process the data using Anti-Aliasing levels and sampling levels. The Anti-Aliasing level is global and affects every object in the scene but the sampling level is the limiter and can be set on an object-by-object basis up to the amount shown here. The Anti-Alias Level is basically a grid used when rendering to examine every pixel about to be rendered. The larger the grid number, the more information about the pixels in the scene can be created. It's a bit like a screen door. The tighter the door mesh, the smaller the light is that passes through it. It's the same with data here. The sampling level is how many times the objects in your scene are examined before they get to the screen door. Let's click on a model, look at its Info Window. We see in the Shading Tab that it has the sampling level set to two by two. But because the Render Settings only allow for a maximum of one by one, then only one by one resolution will be used; four by four and then the model setting of two by two will be used. So once more, the sampling level in the Render Settings is a limiter. Typically, the Anti-Alias Level should be set to four times higher than the amount in the sampling level. Most of the time you won't need to change the default settings. Occasionally, though, you may run into edge problems when you have thin lines or small bevels. Increasing the density of the Anti-Aliasing and sampling will fix these problems and increase your render time significantly.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Electric Image Animation System 7 |
| Author: | Scott Simmons |
| SKU: | 33996 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-45-9 |
| Release Date: | 2009-06-01 |
| Duration: | 8 hrs / 102 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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