Anti Alias

Overview

A finishing node that softens the jagged appearance of diagonal lines and curves in pixel art. It leaves solid areas, straight lines, and 1px lines untouched, placing color only in the inner corners of stair-step edges.

Technical details

• It detects an inner stair-step corner where the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal neighbors share one color and only the current pixel differs, then blends it once.
• Detection always uses the input image, so the operation cannot cascade and melt the outline.
• When a palette is connected, blended colors snap to the nearest palette color, preserving control over the color count.
• Transparent boundaries are excluded by default, so no translucent pixels are created.
• When transparent boundaries are enabled, colors are blended with alpha-aware interpolation. Hidden RGB in fully transparent pixels cannot create dark or tinted halos.

Usage tips

• This node works best with a palette connected. Intermediate colors are rounded to colors in the palette, softening the outline while retaining the same color-count discipline as hand-placed anti-aliasing.
• A strength of 0.3–0.6 is subtle. At 1.0, the result softens considerably.
• Place it at the end of the graph, after quantizing. If applied before quantizing, intermediate colors may disappear or shift unpredictably during quantization.
• include_edges is OFF by default for transparent boundaries. Leave it OFF for assets where translucent pixels cause problems in the game engine.

Common pitfalls

• The effect is not visible: it targets only the inner corners of stair steps. Straight lines, solid areas, and already-smooth outlines remain unchanged by design.
• The color count increased: without a connected palette, the node creates freely blended intermediate colors. Connect a palette.
• The edge became translucent and the outline looks muddy: include_edges is ON. Turn it OFF.

Examples

1. Go-to finishing chain: Palette Quantize → Anti Alias (with the palette also connected) → output
2. Cleanup after rotation: place it after Pixel Rotate to soften remaining stair steps

Related nodes

• pixel_cleanup — remove stray pixels and isolated dots before anti-aliasing
• palette_quantize — the companion node; quantize first, then anti-alias
• pixel_rotate — send rotation-induced stair steps here for cleanup
• outline — when combining the two, use outline → anti-alias