Quality: In most cases this is set to Custom due to the choices made within this section. The render options are some of the most confusing and technical parts a 3D animator has to deal with.
It's all about your video card and its capabilities. If your video card doesn't support shadows or pixel shading then you will not be able to use those features. Most users turn on what is available to see how that works with iClone . If the feature is not supported then it is not available for use in the user interface and its option will be greyed out.
Some shaders are better than others. The Pixel Shader gives the best overall result in terms of reproducing the lighting and other aspects of the scene. This is followed closely by the Vertex Shader, which does a good job but not up to the pixel shader standard. Lighting is weaker in the Vertex shader.
Finally, there is the Quick Shader which turns off a lot of bells and whistles in terms of render quality. The lighting is basic and shadows may be non-existent or very poor. It is usually desirable to do your final render in Pixel Shader, if available. There are two other shader modes available in the workspace: Smooth Shading and Wireframe. These are draft-only shaders and should be used when the workspace slows down due to the load on the 3D iClone engine.
Note
The iClone workspace typically uses assets with 30,000 or less faces. This doesn't mean you can't use more complex assets with more faces but it will slow iClone down, sometimes to a crawl, and the render shader you have set while working can spell the difference between slogging along or working at a faster clip. When the workspace slows down, go to the QUICK SHADER or WIRE FRAME to reduce the load on the iClone engine and you will find the workspace responds much faster. Set the shader back to Pixel Render for your final render or to preview items that can only be seen with a higher level shader.
Anti-alias: While turned off in this image, anti-alias is a very important feature of iClone that eliminates those ragged edges or artifacts on characters or props. Artifacts appear when a higher resolution asset is used in lower resolution engines.
Mip Maps and Anisotropic Filtering: According to Wikipedia, Mip Maps are a group of images combined with the main texture that speed up rendering. Check this selection to take advantage of any content that uses Mip Mapping.
Anisotropic Filtering improves the quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles. This is a bandwidth intensive setting. While an 8X setting will make oblique surfaces render better there will a trade-off in system performance. I usually leave this setting at 4X.
Enable Spring/Flex Effect: Check this to turn on this feature as it allows for props built with spring technology to work properly. Content such as flags and capes use the flex feature to give those props an animated effect.
Max Real-time Map Size: This determines the maximum size of texture map iClone can use. It ranges from 256X256 to 8192X8192. The larger the map allowed, the better the texture will look, but it will also use more resources from the iClone engine. I keep my settings at the maximum range of 8192X8192.
Transform Gizmo: This handles manipulation of characters, props, and other 3D assets. You can drag or rotate assets without the transform gizmo but the gizmo will give greater control over precise movement of assets.
To use a gizmo, you set your mouse cursor on one of the colors, hold down the left button and move, scale, or rotate the object. This can also be done without gizmos via direct manipulation with the mouse and the proper menu choice.
Note
There are advantages to both direct and gizmo manipulation. Use Ctrl + Q to toggle back and forth between the modes.
Drag and Drop Automatic External Files: This is a real time saver. If you have iClone assets scattered around your computer you can open an explorer window showing those assets and simply drag-and-drop props and other assets into the iClone workspace with your mouse.
You can also drag-and-drop image textures and video! If you have a television in a scene that has a separate surface for the screen, then you can drag-and-drop a video onto that screen surface to emulate a broadcasting television.