Wireframe Render in Maya

I too have been struggling a lot with this question and therefore I went through many blogs/tutorials and saw that there are many ways to do it.

But then the second question which hit me was that my model was in smooth preview mode (No 3 in maya) so in that case how to render. As coz smooth preview mode works only with mental ray render and mental ray will NOT render Wireframe. Wireframe can only be achieved via Maya Vector.

So after going through lots of tutorials and experimenting I came up with this method. I am writing this tutorial for myself so that it can be of use to me in future (Maya is a complicating thing to remember) :P

First of all. Its a good idea to save ur file in a differnt name and call it wireframe as the model have to be altered (So probably not the best idea to do it in your original file)

Second, Before you proceed make sure to light your scene as much as possible.. Assign ONE differnt LAMBERT material to all your objects in the scene and you are free to delete all the textures and shaders nodes as we longer require them. Your scene is going to be crazy heavy so best to "Optimize your scene" before proceeding. It will do your task of making the scene as light as possible.

Now straight to Instruction:

1> If u have any camera to set, Set your camera and lock it. (Imp)

2> If u have not, Assign ONE new material (LAMBERT), call it wireframe and color it full white [All the objects in your scene will have only that material assigned to it]

3> Now confirm face and Normals of your Model.

4> Save your file (Save as)

5> Select your model(all of it) and combine it [the objective is to make sure your scene has only one object]

6> Optimize your scene (This is the last time you are doing it, No more optimization after that or deleting history)

7> Now goto "EDGE" Mode and select all the edges in your scene.

8> Now, with the edge selected, go to CREATE>QUICK SELECTION SET> Give a name to it and Click OK (save your Scene)

9> Next, Make your model in the normal selection mode again and click MESH>SMOOTH (and click on the small box beside that)

10> Apply Division 1 or 2 (according to your scene performance) [Do not delete History]

11> Now select your model and apply NORMALS>SOFTEN EDGE

12> Now you have to seelct your original edge. So goto EDIT>QUICK SELECTION SET> Your set name

13> Now go to NORMALS>HARDEN EDGE [So that ony the hard edge gets rendered out]

14> Make sure Vector Render Plugin is loaded. [Go to WINDOWS>SETTINGS/PREFERENCE>PLUG-IN-MANAGER>VectorRenderer.mll]

15> Now open Render Settings window and choose "Maya Vector" & under Maya Vector tab, go to EDGE OPTIONS - Click on "Include Edge"

16> Give EDGE Style to "OUTLINE"

17> Give Weight to 0.05 to 1.00 depending upon your preference

18> Give "Edge Color" to Black

19> Make sure "Back Face Culling" is checked ON (Not necessarily. Please experiment with it) Leave evrything as Default

20> Now RENDER!!!

Incase of any question do mail me or leave comment. Hope this was helpful.

Thanks

Iron Man HulkBuster

Iron Man (Shaders and Composition)

Thanks to my Friend - Maharshi Das for lighting and compositing..

Tombstone (Update - Texture)

Finally after texturing..

Iron Man Hulk Buster

Iron Man Hulk Buster (Hard Surface Modeling)

The Tombstone

Made in with the reference of the cars shown in the movie "Death Race" Enjoyed doing it.. Working on textures at teh moment.. :D

Concept Car

My friend gave me this design (which he found in the web) to make it for him for his lighting purpose... and i must admit i really enjoyed working on this car.
It was a small model and took my like approx 4-5 hrs to do this. Really enjoyed working on this.

Art War 6

Did this for Art War 6 hosted by http://cgtantra.com
It was 4 member team and we had an awesome time and it was a great learning curve doing this scene.
Wish to Participate in more such competiton in future. :D

In Space

Saw this somewhere and i liked it very much.. so thought of modeling it... though i would like to add more detail to it.. or will do more bigger space enviornment in future.. aahhaa... ;)

Buggati Veyron Grand Sports

Modeling of Bugatti Veyron Grand Sports in Maya

Violent Marv

Violent Marv is the character from the Comics Sin city by Frank Miller.
I happen to found the concept art in the net and so just did it for practise.. ;)

Blancpain Carrousel Sapphire WIP

I got very excited to model this watch when i saw the real image on google... So, I thought about it for a while and started modeling it with whatever reference image I could find.. It was a tough challenge to eye ball each and every gears and model it but overall I was very satisfied after completing it.. I feel like there's more to do.. so its on hold for time being.. will do it again when I have some time to waste :P

Muimui

To all u Loco Roco fans :D

German 88mm Flak Gun

H a look at some render images of German 88mm Flak gun

That was too much of detailing.. still no where near to what i had in mind.. It was a nice practice though.. Looking forward to do for more such work.. :)