Wireframe rendering

[scrimski]

The best and fastest method to share the topology of a model with others is a wire rendering. Unfortunately an unshaded wire doesn't makes sense, at least to me, the workaround using a cloned and pushed model could cause problems when dealing with high poly scenes - time to create a shaded wire material within 3dsMax, a short and easy task, which can be solved in less than a minute.

Here we go:
Open the Material Editor, select a Standard Material, set the Diffuse to black. check 'Face map' and apply to your object.
For the Diffuse Slot use a Gradient Ramp Map, set the Gradient Type to 'Normal' and the Interpolation to 'Solid', Tiling has to be unchecked.
Set the color for the middle flag to white, render, done.


http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/5856/28pm.jpg


Keep in mind that you are not able to render out isolines only when using a MeshSmooth.

[kevjon]

Looks easy, have to give it try. Thanks for putting this together.

I've always been lazy and just done screen dumps for wireframes by setting material to white, self illumination to 100% and black for the wires.

I think Mental Ray also has a very easy method of producing wireframe renders too.

[roshent]

And WIRE renders for CINEMA 4D users:


Go to your objectlibrary and select your hyperNURBS off (red cross),
more if you have more then one HyperNURB.

http://www.military-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=174&stc=1&d=1148939109


Go to rendersettings and the Effects menu, select Post Effect and Cel Renderer.

http://www.military-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=175&stc=1&d=1148939196


In the Cel Renderer options click on Edges

http://www.military-meshes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=176&stc=1&d=1148939231


Now make your render !

EDIT: uploaded the images to the mil-mesh server

[bzhyoyo]

Thanks for the tip :)
for the wireframes I've done so far, I used a composite of two shots : one render, and one with "force wireframe" on in the render panel (this is in 3dsmax). I then merge the two shots in PSP. You can get cool effects by playing with the merge options of the two layers. The downside : you see the front and the back and with some angles, it gets pretty messy to understand the wires on the final image.

[Archetype]

incase of VRAY use "VrayEdgeMat'

it does the same as stated above for max but is faster due too compatibilty with vray

[Zorin]

I have something odd going on here scrimski. On the left I set the Interpolation to Custom and get a good result and on the right I set it to Solid as you said and it is messed up. Why is that?

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2/propswireoi9.jpg

[scrimski]

Attach the file, so I can have a look at.

[scrimski]

I wrote a script for that.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/wirematerial

[Mirko]

Thanks for sharing, Scrimski!
:salute:

[Aceman]

Hey this is very usefull. Thank you.

Aceman