I’m rather surprised I haven’t written anything about this yet.
This week I’ll be showing you how to create wireframe renders in 3d Studio Max. It’s surprisingly easy and yields a great result. We’ll start off with a composite material that uses a black wireframe overlay and an ambient occlusion map for some subtle shading. Then I’ll show you a trick I like to use for rendering wireframes next to fully rendered versions of the model.
Also, I’m super-stoked about the front page placement on 3dTotal. For those of you who don’t know, 3dTotal is the source of 3d industry news, tutorials, and texture CDs.
By Kouba September 29, 2009 - 11:36 pm
Are you a professional journalist? You write very well.
By Bluesummers September 30, 2009 - 12:11 am
Thanks much! Nope, not a pro writer, but I do get lots of practice at work. =)
By Hristo Velev September 30, 2009 - 2:21 am
Cool vid again 😉
By Bluesummers September 30, 2009 - 9:10 am
[High Five] Glad you like it, Hristo! Let me know if you have any topics you’d like me to cover in a video.
By Jonathan December 14, 2009 - 1:56 pm
Hi,
I spent a night ad went through all of your videos. Great stuff and I’ve learned plenty. I was wondering if I could request a video tut. I have had problems for some reason with liquid through glass like a typical wine glass with wine scene. For ome reason (tried all the normal routes) when I put a full wine glass behind another wine glass using AD materials and correct IOR, I get black where the glass/liquids overlap in the render. Can you providehelp or possibly a tutorial. Maybe there’s a simple thing I haven’t turned on or checked. Thanks and keep up the great work!
Jonathan
By nick November 4, 2011 - 12:11 pm
Dear Mr Bluesummers. First can I just say that I love all your tutorials on 3ds max, they have advanced my workflow tenfold, so thank you for all your efforts. However I’m left feeling slightly perplexed by the wireframe overlay render tutorial. You discuss two techniques for wire frame overlay rendering. Its the first technique (which is a material based solution) that interests me. But every time I try this, after following your instruction to the letter, I find I lose the gray material & the end result is just a wireframe render. Would it be possible for you to tell me what I’m doing wrong please? I’ve watched this tutorial a dozen times & I can’t work out where things are going wrong. Thankyou in advance for any help you could throw my way.
Nick.
By Mr. Bluesummers November 18, 2011 - 9:12 pm
Hmm…So it’s a wireframe material that is transparent where it should be grey or white? That suggests that there’s a blending problem between the two materials. Try double checking that it’s a composite and that the blending isn’t acting funny.
If its still giving you trouble, consider posting some screenshots so I can take a look. 🙂
By nick November 7, 2011 - 1:40 pm
Its okay Mr blue summers, I finally figured out I had neglected to render the scene using mental ray… D’oh!