Maya Wireframe Rendering Script

Automatically sets up Maya to render nice wireframes. Requires at least Maya 2011, though tested only with 2012.

## Automatic setup of nice wireframe renders
## by using Maya's vector renderer

import pymel.all as pm

## Get a list of all selected objects

objs = pm.ls(selection=True)

 

## Assign a new surface shader to everything
mat = pm.shadingNode('lambert', asShader=True, name ="vectorSurfaceMat")
mat.color.set( [0,0,0] )
sg = pm.sets( renderable=True, noSurfaceShader=True, empty=True, name='vectorSurfaceSg' )
mat.outColor >> sg.surfaceShader
pm.sets(sg, edit=True, forceElement=objs)

 

 

## Loop through all objects
## attempt to make them hard edged
## attempt to turn on hard edge propagation
## for rendering smoothed SDS models
## (note, this is useless for the Vector Renderer)
## since it ignore "SmoothMesh" properties

for obj in objs:
  try:
    pm.polySoftEdge( obj, angle=0, ch=1 )
    obj.getShape().propagateEdgeHardness( 1 )
  except:
    print('Failed on an element of the selection')

 

## Attempt to lead the vector rendering plugin
try:
  pm.loadPlugin( "VectorRender.mll" )
except:
  print( "Vector renderer is either already loaded, unavailable, or giving an error. Most likely it is simply already loaded. Proceeding." )

 

## Set the vector renderer as active
d = 'defaultRenderGlobals'
opts = pm.PyNode( d )
opts.ren.set('mayaVector')


## Made vector renderer options
## we have to do this here because Maya doesn't
## make them until the UI comes back after the script
v = 'vectorRenderGlobals'
try:
  vOpts = pm.PyNode( v )
except:
  vOpts = pm.createNode( v, n=v )

 

## Setup our vector rendering options to make nice wireframes
vOpts.includeEdges.set(1)
vOpts.edgeWeight.set(3)
vOpts.edgeColor.set( [1,1,1] )
vOpts.curveTolerance.set(0)
 

## All done!
print( "Setup of wireframe rendering via vector renderer is complete!" )
 

## Last line for bottom
## of all Maya Python scripts to avoid
## Maya's blank space parsing bug.
pass