MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX, Use Manual

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Chapter 17 450
4
Select a rendering method from the pop-up menu.
If you don’t select a rendering method, Director defaults to
#auto
.
Below the pop-up menu, the name of the active 3D renderer property appears. The value of this
property indicates which rendering method is currently being used. This is especially useful when
you want to know which renderer is active while you have
#auto
selected.
Using 3D Anti-aliasing
Director MX gives you the ability to use anti-aliasing with 3D cast members in your movies.
Anti-aliasing improves the appearance of graphics by smoothing the lines between shapes or areas
of different color so that the lines do not appear jagged. When you use anti-aliasing with a 3D
sprite, the edges of each model in the sprite appear smoother against each other and against the
background. Anti-aliasing of 3D sprites is particularly well-suited for merchandise demos and
other e-commerce applications because its image quality is high and it can be turned on and off,
as needed, in real time.
Effects of anti-aliasing
An anti-aliased 3D sprite uses more processor power and memory than one that is not
anti-aliased, resulting in lower frame rates. Because of this, it is recommended that you turn off
anti-aliasing for 3D sprites while any part of the sprite is being moved or animated and turn it
back on when the animation is complete. Movies that are designed to animate quickly, such as
games, might work better with anti-aliasing turned off. During authoring, movies that use anti-
aliasing continue to draw heavily on the processor, even after the movie is stopped. You might
want to turn off anti-aliasing each time you stop your movie to ensure that the performance of
Director is not affected.