Creating The Half-Wire / Half Shaded Images from ap3d.com

Many people have asked me how I create the images on the ap3d.com site, which show a partially shaded object blended with a wireframe render. Well I'm fed-up with writing long emails to explain the technique, so here is a new tutorial to show you how to do it yourself.

creating half-wire / half-shaded images

1)

For this tutorial, I'll be using the simple example of a planet I've been playing with recently, but while you are following these steps, you should apply the techniques to whichever model you are using.

Your first step should be to render out the fully shaded version of the image, so that you end up with something like this:

fully shaded render

Save out this image as shaded_render.psd or whatever format you prefer, except JPEG, because we don't want any compression on the image yet.

2)

Your next step is to revisit Lightwave (or whatever you're using) and open up the surfaces panel.

You will need to change all the surfaces defined for the current object or objects.

Lightwave surfaces panel

In my object, there is only one surface defined, called Kalteweld Clouds Layer.

The image above shows the basic settings you will need to enter for the surfaces.

Surface Colour	<same colour as your background>
Luminosity	100%
Diffuse Level	0%
Specular Level	0%
Reflectivity	0%
Transparency	0%
Smoothing	<on or off, depending on whether your model needs it>

Notice that the Surface Colour must be set to the same colour as the colour you have set in the Effects Panel for Background Colour. If you are using an image as the background colour, then you should do the following:

This step is only relevant if you are using a background image in your scene:

You must take your Background image and use it as a Front Projection Image Map for the Surface Colour map.

options for Front Projection Image Map texture panel

Note that I have NOT done this for the planet renders on this page, as they use a flat black background.

In this example, by background image uses an image called Clouds.tga, so every surface on you object should use Clounds.tga as its colour texture as a FPIM.

Do this for every surface that your object uses.

2)

Next, you should go to the Objects panel and set up some options for Polygon Edges.

Lightwave objects panel

As you can see from the image above, I have instructed Lightwave to render the Kalteweld Clouds.lwo object with polygon edges.

I have also set the Particle/Line Size to Small and specified an appropriate colour for the Edge Colour.

You must now render out the image again, this time using the resolution twice the size of the resolution you used for the shaded render. For example, if your shaded render was done at Low Resolution (320x240), your wire render should be done at Medium Resolution (640x480). This is necessary to get the definition in the polygon edges, which get rendered badly otherwise.

Render out the frame, and you should have something like this:

wire render next to fully shaded render

Save out this new image as wire_render.psd.

3)

We have now finished with Lightwave, so you can close it down if you need to. We will now be venturing into Photoshop, and the tutorial will be geared towards using this, but the techniques are applicable to most modern image processing and compositing packages.

Firstly, you should open up the files shaded_render.psd and wire_render.psd into Photoshop.

Next, resize the wire_render image so that it is the same size as the shaded_render image. In this example, both images should now be at 320x240 pixels.

Finally, paste the wire_render image on top of the shaded_render image. Your image should look like this:

our image in Photoshop, together with the Layers Palette.

At this point, you have the choice of creating two kinds of effect, both of which are used at ap3d.com.

I will split the page into two columns, each of which will describe how to achieve the desired effect.

The first effect has the object dissolving from fully-shaded to wireframe over the surface of the object, as seen on the first page of the Build Your Own Whitestar Tutorial.

the results of applying effect #2

This effect is slightly more complex than the second, as you have to set up a mask for the top layer.

Firstly, change to Quick Mask mode by clicking this button on the toolbox:

Next, select the Gradient Tool by clicking this button on the toolbox:

Using the gradient tool, draw a gradient across the image, starting at one edge and ending at the other. My Quick Mask colour is set to yellow, and you should see something like this:

gradient applied in Quick Mask mode

Next, change out of Quick Mask mode by clicking this button on the toolbox:

As you do this, your image will look like this:

Quick Mask mode off, showing selection

Finally, simply hit Delete and half the image will disapper, revealing the shaded image behind.

layers palette showing results

If the wrong half of the image is cleared, undo the step and invert the selection (Ctrl + Shift + I) and then clear it again.

final result

And you've finished. You may want to play with several different kinds of gradients to achieve a special effect, or you could paint a custom mask, as I did for the image at the top of this page.

The second effect is to have the entire object with semi-transparent wireframe edges, as seen in some of many of the renders of Whitestar v4.0 in the Whitestar v4.0 Preview pages.

the results of applying effect #1

This effect is the easier of the two to achieve.

Simply alter the compositing options for the top layer to 50% opacity (or whatever looks good) and change the compositing type from Normal to Screen.

the results of applying effect #1

This chage to Screen will only composite the lighter areas of the image, so the shaded image behind becomes visible behind the wireframe. Experiment with changing the Opacity until you like the results.

That's it!

I hope this answers everyone's questions about how these images are produced, but if you have any further questions, email them to me at kier@ap3d.com