Rendering wire frames on smoothed models
 

Hi folks,

trying to do this at the moment. I've tried using a box ramp with two colours/no interpolation, which would be good except that it gives lines of varying thickness according to the density of the mesh (so you get very uneven lines).

The most luck I've had has been just applying a base mesh level uv map as colour, though the problem with this is that, due to the smoothing / uv seams, I've having to rejig and attatch different uv shells to there's not artefacting on the wire where seams join.

It's pretty laborious... isn't there any easier way just to render a base level wire on your smooth mesh?

cheers

gubar

Ok, after messing around, I can get a nice wire frame render on my base mesh using the contour render feature of mental ray. It works on the smooth mesh too but obliviously renders the denser mesh... I'm hoping someone can tell me how to have the base wire, but rendered on the smoothed mesh.

cheers

gubar

take a UV snapshot of your non-smoothed object, save the image, then apply the UV snapshot image as your material on your smoothed object

Hi,

like I said in my first post, I've already tried this. It nearly works, but uv seams shows on the model.

cheers

gubar

Have you seen this Gubar.. I did a google search and came across this. I haven't tried it though..

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla...pic.php?t=4119

Hello,

thanks for the suggestion, but tried that one last night - it renders wires just fine, but only at the current level of subdivision.

Think the only way is to just relay all my uvs so that the seams don't show at all... having a bit of a look into rendering without wire, then doing a playblast with with wireframe on, then trying to blend the two in premier, not too hopefull about that solution though.

cheers

gubar

It sucks something like this isn't easier. You would think this would be a super basic thing that's built into Maya..

Yeah, it seems like a feature that would be nice to have as a render option under contour rendering - "render base wire" or something.

Anyway, time is important, so I'm just going to render it out base with wire, then smoothed, then textured.

I'm looking for a little advice re the turntable scene. The camera is set up, the background is just an image plane with a ramp, and the shadow is actually a plane with a circular ramp controlling it's transparency. The material is surface shader > ambient occlusion texture so no lights are used.

What are your thoughts on the background? I think it is prety dull and lifeless, but I was trying to get away from having a flat colour. Suggestions as to what to use, colour/plane/geometry wise would be appreciated to make this more appealing.

cheers

gubar

how bout a bit of bump mapping?