How to get solid render with wireframes and no shading

Question

I got this by using the advice here... How to display the edges of a mesh while in Object mode?

Basically, use object mode and check "wire" and "display edges". Then I adjust materials until I can get it as white as possible. Unfortunately, I still get some shading.

Is there any way to do this with no shading, zero, nada? Here's something along the lines of what I am trying to acheive... http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-116577055/stock-photo-high-resolution-concept-or-conceptual-d-wireframe-human-female-head-isolated-on-beige-background.html?src=pp-same_artist-116574211-2&ws=1

And to top it off, I'm a total Blender noob. I slog through it once a month to get wire frame images for a regular blog feature.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

There are quite a few ways to accomplish this.

• OpenGL

  See this answer for details on setting up the wireframe.
  Note that the Hidden Wire draw option can be useful for culling the wires on the back of the model without setting the color of the model to match the background.

  See this answer for details on making the models in the viewport shadeless.

  Pros: Very fast. Usually no artifacts or missing lines. Works with optimal (curved) wireframes.

  Cons: Total hack, requires setting theme colors to adjust the color of the wire and background. No control over line width.

• Blender Internal

  See these two answers for setting up the wireframe materials.

  To make the base material shadeless, enable Shadeless in material settings > Shading:

  

  To make it automatically match the background color, enable Mask Transparency in the base material and set the alpha to 0:

  

  

  Pros: Works with optimal (curved) wireframes.

  Cons: Can have issues with the Z offset causing missing lines or visible lines which should be occluded. Limited control over line styled/width.

• Cycles

  To get wireframes directly in cycles, see this question and the wireframe node.
  To make a shadeless material in cycles, see this answer.

  Pros: It's cycles

  Cons: Perfect non-triangulated wireframes are not currently possible. There is a workaround with UV coordinates, however this results in line sizes relative to polygon size.

• Wireframe modifier

  The wireframe modifier generates actual mesh geometry representing the wireframe of the input mesh. Since the output is just a mesh, it works with both BI and Cycles.

  See this answer for details on setting it up (answer is for cycles, but the process is identical for BI).

  For shadeless renders, see the previous sections in this answer regarding BI and Cycles for descriptions of their respective methods of creating shadeless shaders.

  Pros: Just works

  Cons: Generates geometry; line thickness is defined in 3D space.

• Freestyle

  Freestyle is a line rendering engine which supports drawing over both BI and Cycles renders.

  For cycles, see this answer.
  For BI, see this answer.

  Pros: Lots of control over line style etc.

  Cons: Sometimes edges have gaps/other artifacts. Can be resource hungry.