[Tutorial] Anti Aliasing in the game

[autoVino 26]

I have made it simpler, now just a pdf file or a docx file
*.pdf (adobe reader) (21.54mb)
*.docx  (microsoft office 2007) (11.08mb)

[Jasoncw 11,839]

hey, great tutorial.  I've made this thread so that it will not archive, and I've added a link to it in the beginning of the BAT mega FAQ.

What about that setting (is it in preferences somewhere, I forgot) that at the very beginning you needed to check.  "Don't anti-alias against background" I think it was called.  Don't you need to go back and uncheck that so that your rendered image is anti-aliased?

[autoVino 26]

hmmm... you might.  I never recal changing my setting to that so by default the background is included in anti aliasing.  But I'll have to check and see if it makes a difference, thanks for the tip!

[xannepan 513]

Hi all,

I have tried this and it works great. However, there is a downside to it. If you use this on models, the original LOD, while transparant to base textures in the game, does hide from view other models in the background. 

If there is a solution to this I'd love to here about it.

Alex

[GMT 389]

not bad... from the look of the how-to, I'm pretty certain it can't be done in gmax.

unfortunately.

but what helps a little here is forcing AA onto sc4 via grafic card drivers.

ok, it's an idividual solution and not as good as this one and by far no batting method, but imho a nice way to "fake" a real anti-aliased bat

[autoVino 26]

@xannepan: Yeah, I noticed it in lot editer, and I was frustrated.  But in the game it seemed all right and worked fine!  I think it may be that the lot editor doesn't support transparency very well just like it doesn't support shadows.

alright, back to studying for mechanical calculus physics exams...

[Jasoncw 11,839]

You can change those settings for .FSH files created by Gmax as well. However, I don't think that the transparency mask is anti-aliased in the first place, so it might not really matter there.

[cogeo 960]

Jason: Checking the "Don't anti-alias against background" option is not recommended because it causes the alpha masks in the output FSH files to contain only black and white pixels, not grayshades which can make the model really antialiased. The problem is that the renderer blends the object's texture with the background colour (default black) for these few "transition" pixels, which is actually wrong. It should instead use the texture colours unchanged; in combination with the alpha this would cause a really smooth antialiasing effect.

A workaround is to go to the Rendering/Environment dialog and in the Common Parameters group set the Background colour to a "softer" value. Ideally set it to the "average" colour of the object's texture. This will cause the renderer to blend those transition pixels with a colour that won't contrast with the object's texture. If there are multiple objects (with very different texture colours) that need to be antialiased against the background you can choose a colour close to the expected lot's (base) texture(s). If this is yet unknown a neutral/average colour (like RBG 127,127,127) is a wise choice and works fine in most cases, as neither the objects' colours nor the textures are usually too dark or too bright.

Combining the above with the semitransparency technique presented by autoVino can indeed deliver near perfect results.

I'm using this technique in some new props I'm curently making.

[autoVino 26]

cogeo: oh my, I forgot to say that inspiration for this technique came from your semitransparent rail stations.  Or that is how I figured out how to make semitransparent models (with anti aliasing) into the game.

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Oh no, someone will may have to check as the problem may be on my end (new router/funky internet), but this tutorial seems to have lost its most important chunks.

Also, the links from the BAT - Mega FAQ to this and other tutorials seem to also be broken, as they unresponsively link to addresses such as: javascript:void(0);/*1214168612515*/

I had to find this thread through the Simtropolis search feature, which, like all search engines, requires some clever artfulness to use successfully.  Perhaps the misbehaving threads are a remnant result of the server attacks not to long ago that mashed through legacy threads.

[Jasoncw 11,839]

Yeah, it was from the attacks. AutoVino will need to come back and fix it. I fixed the page's layout though. And I need to go back and fix the BAT - Mega FAQ links. I fixed some of them though.

[autoVino 26]

I think I'll have to re-write the tutorial (or at least the end of it) since I'm having trouble locating it on my hard drives...

but it's no biggie for this one since all the images are still on photobucket.

maybe tomorrow

[autoVino 26]

finally got to it:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yzt928ymhny

~15mb pdf file

[autoVino 26]

bump!

I've added a few things and did some more testing... the tutorial file is getting large :-p

*.pdf (adobe reader) (21.54mb)

*.docx  (microsoft office 2007) (11.08mb)

[jakis 287]

I'm sorry, but links are dead   Could you update it, please?