Anti-aliasing

#1 @Matt
You might want to do some research on anti-aliasing before posting in a topic about it - your statements are pretty inaccurate.

@Tim
I'm pretty sure Torque doesn't allow you to set anti-aliasing, but you should be able to change it in your graphics card's configuration.

#2 Ok thanks for the help.

#3 @Matt
Sorry if I sounded offensive. I didn't mean it to be. I know you're young and eager to learn and help, but it's not really helpful for people to hear false information whether you warn them or not.

For an example of what anti-aliasing can do, try this:
Open up your graphics card configuration (Control Panel->Display, Settings Tab, Click on Advanced, Graphics Card Tab) and find something like "Anti-Aliasing Settings". You should be able to set it to application-controlled, off, and a couple of multipliers. Set it to 'Off'.
Run starter.fps
Go into the options screen and set the resolution to 640x480 fullscreen.
Load the stronghold mission.
Take a look at the border between the sky and the terrain. It should look pretty jagged.
Now, change your anti-aliasing settings to the highest value your card supports.
Run starter.fps and load the stronghold mission.
Look at the border between the sky and terrain again. Depending on your graphics card, the edge will look much less jagged.

#4 Matt, I think you're getting some terminology confused in context. You're correct that no amount of AA can make a blocky object appear rounded. However, the question was about jaggiest or jagged edges of polygon objects due to the way pixels are displayed. Do a google search for "FSAA" to give you some examples.

#5 I may be wrong knowing me, but ive read the documentation for the direct x sdk and anti aliasing is a way to reduce aliasing or "jaggies" on the edge of 3d objects, it works by merging the colours of the pixels around the edge of the object to form a gradient

#6 I second that question can you activate it or is it a direct x 9 thing (torque ga dsnt use direct x 9 right)

#7 TGE tries to make a few API calls that enable AA (depending on your settings and if you call the console functions that turn it on). If your graphics card honors that is another issue. :)

#8 Hi ben,
oldish thread, but any pointers on what those API calls might be ?

i'm searching the entire codebase for "aa" and "alias" and "anti", and not finding much except the mac-only dglSetFSAASamples().

i do see calls to enable anisotropic texture filtering, and those work, but anti-aliasing i'm having trouble finding.


best,
orion

#9 Ive asked this question before. The only FSAA code in there now is for Mac. You will need to find the windows API calls (then post it as a resource :)

#10 But FSAA is what i'm after, then ?
Thanks, i'll let you know how it goes.

#11 I was messing around with enabling FSAA in Torque a little while back using OGL extensions. Basically you have to create a window and get the pixel format(which Torque already does), then destroy the window and re-create it for using multisampling and supplying the pixel format for it to use.

I plan on re-visiting implementation of FSAA, and I'll most definitely be posting an article on TDN (and/or a resource on GG) when I get it working. However, It'll probably be a windows only implementation because I don't have a Mac to port anything over with.

I'll let you guys know how it goes.

-Jase

#12 @Jase - yeah, that looks to be the proceedure. I got a bit muddled trying to get torque's extension & initialization system to mesh with this HeNe article, and decided to put that particular project aside for a bit. If you get it going i'd love to see it. Don't worry about a Mac port, it's already in TGE 1.3.