Fill Mode - Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-aliasing (AA) is the technical term to describe how a computer program adds a "blur" to lines. This blur helps the human eye see an image more smoothly, but interferes with how WarGear floods a territory in fill mode.

The blur is achieved by adding semi-transparent pixels of the same or similar color as the line you are drawing immediately adjacent to that line. The WarGear engine floods all of the congruous pixels of the same color, so when the flood gets to your blurry Anti-aliased pixels it sees them as something else, and leaves an ugly, fuzzy, usually grayish ring around your territory. Its ugly, and should be avoided whenever possible.

Here is a handy info-graphic which explains in pictures where the option for turning AA on and off exists in Paint.Net, what tools are affected by AA, and by what other names similar functions in Paint.Net go by. It also includes a quick sketch illustrating an image drawn and filled with AA on alongside an image drawn and filled with AA off, so that you can see how your board will look in game.

Once you've mastered AA management to keep your fill floods crisp, play around with using layers with the background drawn with AA on, and a higher layer for your flood areas with AA off. This way, your fills will flood as intended, but other areas of your board will still appear smooth.

Advanced Anti-Aliasing

So, you drew all the lines to your map with anti-aliasing on and don't want to have to redraw the whole thing. Or, you want the outside edge of your territories to have some AA, but still want a crisp, clean edge for fill mode on the inside.

The following info-graphic should help you with the basics of cleaning up all those fuzzy edges.

Remember to always save boards as .PNG file type in order to avoid blurring. Although, it is fine to save as a Paint.NET file type while your work is in progress.