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I'm making figures to illustrate some details about how meshes work. I'd like to render my scene normally, but overlay all of my meshes in wire mode.

The only solution I've found which works is giving a duplicate mesh a wireframe material, which gives me something like this:

enter image description here

Is there some way I could get the same effect without having to duplicate my mesh?

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5 Answers 5

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There are several ways to do this:

Freestyle:

  1. In edit mode, select all and press CtrlE> Mark Freestyle edge

  2. Enable Freestyle in Render settings:
    freestyle panel in render settings

  3. Enable Edge mark in Render layers > Freestyle line set > Edge types:
    freestyle settings

  4. Render.

Wireframe material:

Another way is to use a wireframe material as described in this tutorial:

  1. Add a material and select Wire, enable Z Transparency and set the Z offset up to ensure the wires are rendered above the clay:
    wire settings

  2. Add another material and assign it to all the faces.

  3. Render:

example render

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There is a simple addon for this called Setup Wire Materials.

A script to setup and apply materials for a wire render… It will replace your own with a clay and a wire materials, as seen here and here.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This looks great, but I accepted gandalf3's answer because it worked with Blender as-is, without having to download anything extra. $\endgroup$
    – ajwood
    Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 21:05
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Incoming Blender 2.7 have the Wireframe modifier. The tool replaces the object of his wire. You can set thickness and different material for wires. Short tutorial (1:44) is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgaFHDVFCMQ

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    $\begingroup$ You should take the valuable information from the tutorial and paste it in here. You can still link to youtube but the answer should be stand-alone $\endgroup$
    – Vader
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 15:53
  • $\begingroup$ OK, thanks for suggestion. I was thinking that it will be faster and more understandable. $\endgroup$
    – Alex
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 17:12
  • $\begingroup$ I hadn't noticed the wireframe modifier before. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – dedwarmo
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 0:41
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You can use the Wireframe Modifier. For that, go to the modifier tab with the object selected (I suggest making a copy of it, so you can have both the object and the wireframe), add the modifier called Wireframe under Generate (at the bottom), then you can change the Thickness, Offset and more.

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  • $\begingroup$ More details please, we need detailed answers here. $\endgroup$
    – Lukasz-40sth
    Commented Oct 1, 2020 at 9:17
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Alternative method:

  • Go to the overlay options and select overlay (disable other things if you want to clean the view)
  • Change the color of wireframe on the blender options to white, or other color (black is usually hard to see). [Options -> Themes -> 3D ViewPort -> Wire)
  • Menu View -> ViewPort Render Image

credits to: https://www.blendernation.com/2020/05/19/quick-tip-render-wireframes-in-blender-and-eevee/

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