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I have some Isometric vector blocks in Illustrator that need to line up perfectly. Anti alias looks great but then I get visible edges when overlapping the blocks. Without anti alias they line up perfectly without a visible grid, it still looks ok but kind-of jaggy on the high contrast area's. Is there a way I can anti alias my image only on the inside and leave the outside "jagged"?

I have tried this technique in 3Ds Max with good results but building all my blocks in 3Ds Max is tedious to let all the edges have a 2:1 ratio.

Edit The picture below illustrates what I mean. The top two blocks are offset from each other in the exact same way as the bottom two blocks but if you look closely you see a line running on top between the two blocks. This is because of the anti alias transparency.

This line is minimal mostly because it's a light surface on darker surfaces it is more pronounced since the "mix" of colors will produce a much darker line.

enter image description here

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  • Have you experimented with exporting the image with AA, and then an export without AA and no lighting? In other words the second one would be the silhouette of the block which you can then merge as an alpha. (sometimes the alpha precision is the problem also: either the AA on each channel is not identical as the single-channel alpha, or the alpha is rendered at e.g. 128 levels instead of 256)
    – Yorik
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 19:25
  • @Yorik that is a work around, I can already delete the outer pixels by selecting the bottom cube and deleting the pixels outside that area on the AA cube. But I am really looking for a single export solution.
    – Madmenyo
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 20:26
  • There are 3 ways of solving this. One of them solves the aa blend issue. Are you sure you wouldnt want the alpha blending working. Please note every multi step function is the same as every single step option.
    – joojaa
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 20:27
  • @joojaa what do you mean by the alpha blend? Is there a option I can have the AA without the dark line?
    – Madmenyo
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 20:43
  • Yes you can have alpha that is fully problem free just means you need to calculate in right color space.
    – joojaa
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

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If you use the Save for Web... option from the file menu, choose to save as a GIF and then set the Matte to None then you will get the anti aliasing on the internals of the shape, but not at the edges. The background will still be transparent as long as you have that option ticked.

This has the potential to make the edges of your block look jaggy (like they do in the bottom half of your example image), but it will avoid the semi transparent anti aliasing problem that you are getting where the blocks join.

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