This Might Be A Dumb Question....

How do u get smooth edges in ads?When I make my ads for my clothes my avatars edges r always so rough looking.

Take the screenshots at the highest resolution you can, save them to disk, then shrink them down in a graphics editor before uploading them again. I believe the default for in-game snapshots is 640x480 or some such thing, it's pretty hard to get a high-quality image at such a low resolution.

Also consider turning on AntiAliasing way up high in your video card's preferences, for further smoothing of edges.

I'll second the suggestion for turning on anti-aliasing on your video card settings. You won't believe how much better the world looks even with minimal AA. By default, SL doesn't use AA at all. For whatever reason, Linden Lab keeps not adding any AA settings controls to the SL preferences, and as a result, most people's view of SL is chock full of jaggies. It's really a shame.

The good news is you can do it by hand, and you only have to do it once. If you're using an nVidia card, download nHancer and assign a profile for SL that includes some anti-aliasing. If you're using a newer high-end nVidia card, you won't need nHancer. The nVidia Control Panel finally works properly on the new cards.

If you're using an ATI card, I'm not sure what to tell you. I know it can be done, just don't know how. I haven't touched ATI in years.

Be prepared for a performance hit with AA turned on, so you know. If your machine can't handle it well, you may need to use two different profiles, one for snapshots, and one for every day use.

You can turn on AA in the ATI control panel. If nobody has messed with it, there's an ATI icon in the lower right hand corner system tray. You have to select "advanced" and then it opens up and then you need to change the setting for AA from application decides to whatever you want it at.

You can set up different "profiles" (probably one with the defaults and another with high AA settings for taking pictures) and activate them by right clicking on the ATI control thing in the lower right hand corner system tray before you run the program.

...I download nHancer and try lots and lots of settings. The problem is that I can never see any difference. Is this because I am artistically challenged?

I even uploaded a 64x64 texture with serious jaggies. AA on. AA off. looks the same.

I zoom in on things that should be jagged, seems to me, and they look smooth as a...well, a line, and edge.

This is a fairly new laptop with a GO 7600.

The good news is that I am too stupid to want any better

What AA will do in 3D is smooth the edges of 3D objects. Take a look at the two images below to see what AA in SL does.

Here's a plain wooden cube with no AA. Notice every edge is jagged.



And here's the same cube with 16xQ turned on. Notice the edges are now completely smooth, not a jag in sight.



See the difference now?




You seem to be misunderstanding what AA is for in 3D with respect to textures. You can't take an aliased 2D image, turn on AA in 3D, and expect it magically to fix it. The 3D AA will simply prevent the texture from looking any more jagged in 3D than it already did in 2D. If you want to undo the aliasing present within the texture itself, that's what the AA in your 2D paint program is for.

In other words, a crappy texture will always be a crappy texture. Garbage in, garbage out. If you want your textures to look good, make them look good in 2D first.

3D AA is primarily for smoothing 3D objects. Its effect on texturing is minimal by comparison. Don't expect any 3D setting ever to fix anything having to do with 2D.

Make sense?