Tutorial: Rendering Wireframe in Maya

Rendering Wireframes in Autodesk Maya

Through this tutorial I will be using Maya 8.5 , I have used a simple polygon cube as an example

1. The first step is to open the hypershade window - Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade

2. The second step is to create a Background Shader using the Hypershade. (see picture 1)

Picture 1

3. Once the shader has been created select your object you wish to apply the shader to, with the object still selected go to the Hypershade window and hold down the right mouse button over the newly created shader and select 'Assign Material to Selection'.

4. The next step is to double click the shader to get to its Attributes or press ctrl + A. Change the Specular colour to black, the Reflectivity to 0, the Reflection Limit to 0 and the Shadow Mask needs to be 1. The Matte Opacity needs to be changed to - Solid Matte. (see picture 2)

Picture 2

5. Click the Output Connections button (see picture 3) Then click the Contours tab to expand the Contours options. Click the box to Enable Contour Rendering, here you have a few options to tweak your Wireframe render. You have the ability to change the colour and width of the wireframe. (see picture 4)

Picture 3

Picture 4

6. The next step is to edit the options in the Render Globals. See picture 5 to find the render global button. Once inside the Render Global settings window make sure you have mental ray as your renderer, scroll down to the Contours tab and expand it. Ensure the Enable Contour Rendering box is ticked. You can increase the Over-Sample to 3 to increase the quality. Also tick the box named Around all poly faces, (See picture 6). Once all of these steps have been achieved take a render of your object.

Picture 5

Picture 6

Wireframe Render