non-triangulated wireframe car?

[steevo]

Odd subject, yes?

A client would like to do a spot that uses a wireframe of a car (Cavalier). The problem is, I don't know how to render a wireframe car that isn't loaded with triangular polygons, which don't look good on TV. Too complex. Ideally, I'd like to see a grid of squares.

I could merge polygons, but I don't know how to do that without having to select one pair at a time. Yikes!

Rendering edges hasn't allowed me to renderthe square grid.

... and I'd like to do it in Lightwave. I suppose I'm looking for a NURBS look, so am I out of luck in Lightwave?

Thanks,
Steve

[steevo]

My apologies -- I left out a few things:

There's no budget to model the car from scratch.
I've been on Turbo Squid, but the cost may be out of the client's reach.
I've also been on 3D cad browser, but there are no wireframe previews there.
I haven't done any subpatch modelling in Lightwave, and I don't know much about it all.

Thanks for your time,
Steve

[Lewis]

All that can be doen in LW :)

You can render car in Quads if he is modeled as quads no problem just use "other edges" option in object properties. But car must be freezed if is un SubDs or it will be all triangles :).

Aslo about modleing cars in LW ask what you need i might be able to help since i modeled few of thems myself.

cheers

[Elmar Moelzer]

Last time we had a problem like that we simply texturemapped a wireframe onto the object.
Maybe that helps. It can look pretty cool depending on the situation...
BTW, looking at the current pricing for models on turbosquid I am not sure the client can ask that much for that little budget.
CU
Elmar

[steevo]

Bloody 'ell. A simple solution. I kick myself.

Things are still in the early stages, so the client would probably be open to Turbo Squid.

Then there's Viewpoint ...

Thanks, Elmar and Lewis!

Steve

[omeone]

this might help too, depending on which route you take...

Merge Trigon X is a plugin you can find for free download through Flay.com, it does a great job when converting Triangles to Quads. I use it a lot when importing models from CAD and other graphics apps, and it never ceases to amaze me how "intelligent" it seems to be and how fast it works.

[steevo]

Thanks omeone, I'll check it out.

( http://www.dproject.com/lw_plus_e.htm in the guest section. )

Steve

[jimnokc]

Don't forget also that, except for Menithings, all of the objects in the lightwave\objects directory is royalty free. Check the vehicles folder to see if maybe there's something you can use/tweak. Also, get Merge Trigons X mentioned above. It's like having an un-triple command!

[omeone]

oops ignore

[Extent]

another way you can use to get the "true" wireframe of an object is to create a UV map of the object, then screenshot your modeler window. make the BG white and the lines white. paint out all of the lines you dont want to see and map it back to the object as a clipmap. It's almost as much work as merging the polys in modeler except you dont have to worry about creating any nonplanars and you can paint out any lines you dont want without changing the shape of the object.