Jun 7, 2009
Combine Toon Wireframe And Ambient Occlussion
People have continuously kept asking me how Ive got the effect of rendering a wireframe over the ambient occlusion. and this is what this tutorial is all about.
- 1. Add the Wireframe to all the required meshes by using the Rendering Wireframe Using ToonShader Tutorial or the Script.
- 2. Select all the polygon objects and make a new layer using the Create New Layer and Assign Selected Objects button in the Render Layers Section (see image below, the button with the blue sphere) . Name it AO_Layer.
- 3. Select all the polygon objects and the Toon Wireframe objects and make another new layer. Name it Wireframe_Layer.
- 4. Select the AO_layer, If you are on maya 2008, u can right click and assign a preset on Ambient Occlusion, if your on 2009 then here is the Tutorial to make the shader and assign it to the the layer.
- 5. Select the Wireframe_Layer. Create a UseBackground Shader, Select all the polygonal objects in the layer and assign them the newly created UseBackground shader.
- 6. Make sure in your Render Settings your renderer is set to MentalRay.
Currently one of the problem you will face is that the toonWireframe will only render in MayaSoftware renderer and the Ambient Occlusion will only render is Mental Ray. so to solve this issue we need to allocate which layer should use which renderer.
- 7. Select the Wireframe_Layer. Open the Render Settings and right click on render Using and Click on Create Layer Override. Then Select Maya Software from the List.
- 8. Now, do a batch render, and both the render layers will render as separate image files, which u can then composite together.
- In case you do not have a composting package maya can do a composite of the layers for you. In the Render Layers Tab, Options-> Render All Layers and makes sure that in the render all layers options, the keep image mode option is set to composite layers.
- Here is what the final render looks like with the ambient occlusion render overlapped by the wireframe.
This model is something i had made back in 2005, its a computer from fallout2, i was just trying to make props for games. 
(October 9, 2009 at 5:51 am)
I don’t know If I said it already but …Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read….
(October 10, 2009 at 5:04 pm)
thanx mate, glad u like the blog.
(March 9, 2010 at 7:50 pm)
Hai, Th x for tutorials. But i didn’t have render in my wire frame layer.If i render my wire frame render its rendered like full black.
Pl z Help.
(March 17, 2010 at 6:23 pm)
hi,
this is one of the best render script for maya
i can’t imagine my work without this script
great job dude and keep up yr work
thx again
brgds,
sasa
(October 7, 2010 at 2:29 am)
great tuts and great page in general
keep it up pls ;D
(August 30, 2011 at 8:14 pm)
Mine also, when I create the render layer for wire frame and assign a lambert to it it renders the toon lines. But once I assign the use bg shader it will only render all black. I am using Maya 2011
(August 30, 2011 at 11:39 pm)
tasha can u send me the file with the problem. [email protected]