Turn off all anti-aliasing

archiveofeverything · Post by **archiveofeverything** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 2:56 pm

I want to be able to turn off all anti-aliasing for the final render. I use .png files almost exclusively and if you zoom in too closely on the image, then you can see all of the pixels are smoothed/blurred. I want to be able to turn this off, is there any way to do that?

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:51 pm

i don't know for sure, but the problem is more likely to be that your PNGs are insufficiently high resolution rather than any additional antialiasing... When zooming into any image, it will start looking increasingly fuzzy the more over 100% scale you make it.

Unless there is very good reason to use images, I always reccomend using vectors - the results are much cleaner, but depends if your style allows...

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 10:20 pm

You may want to un-check the "antialias" check box on the export animation window, but I don't think there is any way to turn off ant-ialisaing on images 100%. What you describe is what you get. I am pretty sure that AS always "antialiases" image layers and it is not an option. Why do you need this? If you zoom in on an image it will "pixelate" and show the pixels and look like crap anyway.

-vern

archiveofeverything · Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:24 am

funksmaname wrote:i don't know for sure, but the problem is more likely to be that your PNGs are insufficiently high resolution rather than any additional antialiasing... When zooming into any image, it will start looking increasingly fuzzy the more over 100% scale you make it.

Unless there is very good reason to use images, I always reccomend using vectors - the results are much cleaner, but depends if your style allows...

PNGs aren't compressed in the same way as .jpgs so they don't have any 'compression artifacts' and are therefore 'pixel perfect'. When zooming into a .bmp or .jpg file in many other programs you do not get anti-aliasing, however Anime Studio does anti-alias and doesn't give the choice. My style (pixel art) doesn't allow for vectors. In fact, using vectors would be like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and end up in an inferior end result!

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 12:50 pm

I don't really see a problem here. I work in HDTV (1080) and use a lot of PNGs. Unless I zoom into the final video really close and have the original PNG beneath I don't notice any loss of quality. Also I move and scale all PNGs in AS, so antialiasing is a must anyway.

It would be a bit different if you work in with a deliberately small resolution and want to achieve a pixelized 8-bit look. But please don't talk about "quality" then, rather use "8bit" so we know what's it about. Search for Mikdog's postings about this.

archiveofeverything · Post by **archiveofeverything** » Sat Aug 14, 2010 2:09 pm

To be honest, even when I upscale all of my pngs (some of them taken from 10 x 10 resolution to a 1000 x 1000 image) then AS still puts a blur on them, it just looks tacky. Think I'll have to start using After Effects

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 6:33 am

archiveofeverything wrote:To be honest, even when I upscale all of my pngs (some of them taken from 10 x 10 resolution to a 1000 x 1000 image) then AS still puts a blur on them, it just looks tacky. Think I'll have to start using After Effects

If you have access to After Effects and it doesn't antialias your images go for it. However you are going to get some WICKED SERIOUS stair stepping aliasing along non straight lines.

For example if you rotate one of those 10 x 10 images without any antialiasing the edges that aren't straight up and down and horizontal will "alias" with jagged edges. Quite frankly it will look like crap but if that's what you want by all means go for it. AS is more focused on "quality" out put than low resolution.

A 1000 x 1000 image is not really that big especially if you plan to zoom in and out. The larger you go with the source image the less "blur" you will get from antialiasing. If you doubled or tripled the size you would probably get much better results.

We still don't know what you are trying to do with these images. Some applications just aren't suited for every situation. If you want to animate 8 bit "pixelated" images without antialiasing you will need to use something else. That doesn't mean AS is "tacky" or not working properly. Most people want image antialiasing.

The right tool for the right job.

-vern

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:04 am

the best way i could think of to do an 8bit look is to animated simple basic vector characters in AS and then pixelate them in post (maybe using After FX) - if you're going for a 'pixel' look they shouldn't rightly rotate - it should be that the pixels move to create the animation, which you'd have to animate frame by frame like old game sprites...

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 10:13 am

Uhm, every bitmap software will interpolate if you scale images in any way. And interpolation means anti-aliasing because this is the effect nearly all users want.

8-bit look is a fairly rare style, so people working with that either use programs specialized in that, like 8-bit paint and animation programs, or they find some ways to make their work look like 8-bit.

You could batch process your 10x10px images in Photoshop to enlarge them to 1000x1000, using "nearest neighbour" interpolation only. This way no antialiasing is used. In an animation project in HD this will look like "true" 8-bit.