Wireframe Anti-Aliasing

This tool results in crisper and smoother curves and edges, and gives you control over line thickness for both single and double lines.

Shader Anti-Aliasing

You have the choice of two methods to anti-alias shaded surfaces: Software Anti-Alias and Hardware Anti-Alias.

The choices for Software Anti-Alias are Off, Low, Medium, High, and User Defined. By default this setting is High. When you select User Defined, additional controls appear:

Samples

Sets the number of samples that will be taken and averaged. Generally, you should choose values lower than 36. Choosing a value that is too high for your scene may result in some artifacts, like banding.

Pixel Sample Radius

To create a smooth image, the technique used moves the camera slightly. Setting a value lower than 1 in this option means the camera jitters less than a pixel; values greater than 1 jitter it more than 1 pixel. Choosing a value that is high results in greater blurring than choosing a low value.

Hardware anti-aliasing provides the same functionality as the Surface option in the old WindowDisplay > Smooth tool. To use the Hardware Anti-Aliasing method, you must first check on Allocate Hardware Anti-Alias Resources on Startup, then set Hardware Anti-Alias to On. You need to restart your computer for those settings to apply.

Software anti-aliasing gives you a better quality result, but does not apply while you tumble in the view. Once you stop tumbling, there might be a time lag while the anti-aliasing is re-applied. Hardware anti-aliasing works during tumbling as well but the quality is less. You can use both methods simultaneously if you want.