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Viewport

The Viewport page lets you define viewport preferences, such as high-quality rendering effects.

The following topics are discussed:

High quality rendering / On demand

Composer supports advanced rendering effects for creating high-quality images.

You can choose when to apply effects to your models:

  • Real time - Applies the effect while navigating and performing transformations in the viewport.
  • Real-time preview - Applies an approximation of the effect in real time and then applies the full effect on idle. For example, shadow mapping can be too compute intensive for real-time rendering, but a real-time approximation is important when positioning lights.
  • On idle - Applies the effect automatically during computer idle time (not while navigating or performing transformations).
  • On demand - Does not apply the effect automatically. To apply on-demand effects, click Render > On Demand > High Quality (ribbon) or press A while in the viewport.

Note: Not all options are available for all effects.

Important: For all high-quality rendering effects except Anti-aliasing, the HardwareSupport.Advanced option must be enabled on the Advanced Settings page, and the effect must be supported by your graphics card. See Advanced Settings.

Option Description
Per-pixel lighting

Configures per-pixel lighting (PPL), also known as Phong shading. When enabled, Composer displays shaded surfaces based on the color and illumination at each pixel. PPL can improve lighting of models with poor tessellation. For details, see Per-pixel lighting in Viewport Properties. Choose the effect status:

  • Enabled - Enabled for all documents.
  • Disabled - Disabled for all documents.
  • Use document settings - Obey the Lighting > Per-pixel lighting viewport property.
Disabled Enabled

Shadows

Configures shadow mapping. When enabled, geometry actors cast and receive shadows, making rendering for lighted scenes more realistic. For details, see Shadows in Viewport Properties. Choose the effect status:

  • Enabled - Enabled for all documents.
  • Disabled - Disabled for all documents.
  • Use document settings - Obey the Lighting > Shadow mapping viewport property.
Disabled Enabled

Ambient occlusion

Configures the ambient occlusion (AO) shading effect. When enabled, surfaces take into account light attenuation from nearby actors. For details, see Ambient occlusion in Viewport Properties. Choose the effect status:

  • Enabled - Enabled for all documents.
  • Disabled - Disabled for all documents.
  • Use document settings - Obey the Lighting > Ambient occlusion viewport property.
Disabled Enabled

Depth of field

Configures depth of field (DOF) behavior. When enabled, portions of the scene away from the camera focal point appear blurred. For details, see Depth of field in Viewport Properties. Choose the effect status:

  • Enabled - Enabled for all documents.
  • Disabled - Disabled for all documents.
  • Use document settings - Obey the Depth of field viewport property.
Disabled Enabled

Anti-aliasing

Configures model anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing smooths rough edges (jaggies) to give the appearance of higher resolution by taking into account how much an ideal edge overlaps adjacent pixels. For details, see Anti-Aliasing Tab.

Disabled Enabled

Hardware Anti-aliasing Enables real-time hardware multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) to increase the quality of 3D and 2D images. Select Disable to disable MSAA, or select a sampling resolution: 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 samples. Higher values produce better results but can degrade performance. The recommended value is 8, but the optimal value is hardware-dependent. If you select a value higher than your graphics card supports, the highest supported value is used.

Notes:

  • Even when supported by your graphics card, 32 samples might require more video memory than is available. The result is a black viewport. To resolve the problem, reduce the sampling resolution or disable hardware MSAA.
  • HardwareSupport.Advanced must be enabled. See Advanced Settings

Note: The Glow effect is not configurable at the application level. It is always Use document settings and Real time.

Jittering options

Set these options when you have selected Jittering for Anti-aliasing.

Option Description
Number of passes

(Available when Jittering is selected.) Specifies the number of internal renderings made to create the effect. More passes take longer to perform but produce better results.
Radius

(Available when Jittering is selected.) Specifies the portion of a scene that appears sharp. The image becomes blurred as you move away from the focal point. The higher the value, the larger the depth of field (less blur).

General

Define general viewport preferences.

Option Description
Display statistics Displays statistics (such as the number of actors, triangles, and points) at the bottom of the viewport during navigation.
Tip: Press S to toggle this feature when navigating the scene.
Use default GUI font for text (must reload open documents)

Uses the Composer graphical interface font (computer-dependent) for collaboration text, such as labels and text 2D panels. When this option is cleared, collaboration text is Arial Unicode MS by default. To change an actor font, set the Text > Font property in the Properties pane.

Note: Use Unicode fonts to ensure that foreign-language characters render correctly. If you frequently work with multiple languages, consider defining a Composer style to specify the font or install the associated language pack provided by Microsoft.

Show paper

Displays paper margins in the viewport.





Disabled Enabled A4 Landscape

Note: Define the paper space in (Default) Document Properties - Paper Space. See Paper Space


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