By default, the arcticPigs plugin will dynamically optimize the quality level so that the desired frame rate is achieved. On a slower computer, the plugin will decrease the number of polygons into which each patch is split. For animations, this is usually desired, as it permits a faster frame rate, and therefore a smoother animation.
Sometimes, however, it can be preferable to give model quality a higher precedence than frame rate — when displaying static models, for instance. In this case, a pair of properties in the arcticWindow class may be used to disable the automatic optimization and explicitly set the desired quality.
arctic.window.autoRenderQuality = 0; arctic.window.renderQuality = 0.25;
Contrary to what you might expect, a lower renderQuality setting produces a higher quality image. The minimum value (and the highest quality) is 0.1; values lower than that are clipped to 0.1. Large values are not clipped, but values greater than 20 don't seem to produce any change in quality beyond 20.
If you enable the performanceData setting, you can see what the current renderQuality is at any given time by looking at the "straightness" value.
Both properties are read/write, so when autoRenderQuality is on, one can simply read the renderQuality to determine the quality at which the plugin is rendering the scene.
When you turn autoRenderQuality off, renderQuality remains at its last (automatically-calculated) value. When you turn autoRenderQuality on, no change is apparent until an action occurs, or the user clicks within the window. When you manually set the render quality, however, the change occurs immediately (though the number is not reflected immediately in the performance data display).