Window > Rendering Editors > Hardware Render Buffer (in Hardware Render Buffer window) Render > Attributes.
The type of alpha information saved with the hardware rendered images. Alpha information represents the opacity of each pixel, and is used for compositing images using compositor software. (Alpha information is also referred to as alpha channel, mask, matte, or alpha buffer.) If you do not plan to composite hardware rendered images, set Alpha Source Off. The default setting is Off.
If Write ZDepth is on, the hardware rendered contains depth information (the distance of objects from the camera). Write ZDepth is off by default.
Off | Alpha information is not included in hardware rendered images. |
Hardware Alpha | Assigns each pixel an alpha value based on its opacity, regardless of its brightness or color. The more opaque a pixel is, the more opaque it appears in the image’s alpha channel.Setting Alpha Source to Hardware Alpha only has an effect if your computer has a hardware alpha buffer. If it does not have a hardware alpha buffer and you set Alpha Source to Hardware Alpha, the alpha channel of hardware rendered images is fully opaque. |
Luminance | Assigns each pixel an alpha value based on its brightness. The brighter a pixel is, the more opaque it appears in the image’s alpha channel. |
Red Channel | Assigns each pixel an alpha value equal to the value of its RGB red component. The higher a pixel’s red value is, the more opaque it appears in the image’s alpha channel. |
Green Channel | Assigns each pixel an alpha value equal to the value of its RGB green component. The higher a pixel’s green value is, the more opaque it appears in the image’s alpha channel. |
Blue Channel | Assigns each pixel an alpha value equal to the value of its RGB blue component. The higher a pixel’s blue value is, the more opaque it appears in the image’s alpha channel. |
Clamp | Assigns each rendered pixel an alpha value of 1 (fully opaque), and each unrendered pixel an alpha value of 0 (fully transparent). |
Inverse Clamp | Assigns each rendered pixel an alpha value of 0 (fully transparent), and each unrendered pixel an alpha value of 1 (fully opaque). |
Controls how objects are hardware rendered. (If Geometry Mask is on, Draw Style has no effect.) The default setting is Smooth Shaded.
If on and Resolution is greater than the monitor’s resolution (the hardware rendered images cannot fit on the screen), the Hardware Render Buffer divides the image into tiles, renders each tile separately, then assembles the tiles together when it saves the image to disk. If you are rendering an animation, the Hardware Render Buffer displays each tile as it renders it.
If off and Resolution is greater than the monitor’s resolution, the Hardware Render Buffer only renders the part of the image displayed on the monitor.
If off, the Hardware Render Buffer renders each frame using one pass. If on, the Hardware Render Buffer renders each frame using more than one pass (based on the Render Passes setting, next). This softens or blurs particles with a MultiStreak or MultiPoint Render Type. Multi Pass Rendering is off by default.
The number of passes the Hardware Render Buffer uses to render each frame. The more passes per frame, the greater the softening or blurring of particles with a MultiStreak or MultiPoint Render Type (and a longer rendering time). Render Passes is only available if Multi Pass Rendering is on. The default setting is 3.
Controls how much sharp, jagged surface edges are softened (anti-aliased) during hardware rendering when Anti-Alias Polygons is on. The higher the value, the softer the edges.
Set Edge Smoothing to 1 for clear, smooth edges. If Edge Smoothing is too large (for example, 5), surface edges are excessively blurred. An Edge Smoothing value of 0 has the same effect as turning off Anti-Alias Polygons. The default value is 1.