Scene Effects

Scene Effects apply to entire rendered scene and are part of the Environment Effects dialog.

MSAA

Multi-Sample Anti-Alias is an effect that reduces appearance of jagged edges along adjacent polygons rendered on screen. Anti-alias also reduces flickering that can occur between contrasting colors along polygon edges while the view is moving.

Settings
None	1 sample, no MSAA
2x	2 samples
4x	4 samples (default)
8x	8 samples

Higher sample count increases anti-alias effect improving appearance.

Example showing aliasing effects without MSAA and with MSAA enabled

Ambient Occlusion

Ambient Occlusion (AO) is an approximate global illumination technique to deterime how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. AO feature adds subtle shadows to scene in regions which would naturally recieve less ambient light. Common areas effected by AO are interior corners of a room and around base of objects placed on ground, floors and tables.

Settings
Radius	Increase/decrease area of influence for AO effect
Contrast	Adjusts tonal range of AO effect
Attenuation	Adjusts falloff degree from center to edge of AO radius
Intensity	Adjusts how profound AO effect is

Illustrations here show how to isoloate and understand what effect AO has on the scene. AO effect can be more definatively shown when in solid fill mode

AO effect produces a higher defination scene with addition of subtle shadows to areas naturally recieving less ambient light