newbie: shaded wire render plus zoom

[Archigram]

I am trying to do two things at once which it seems are incompatible in LW. One: I want to render my geometry as shaded wireframes. LW supports this beautifully--better than any program I've demoed--with its excellent control of edge thicknes and color in Item Properties. I get exactly the render I want. Except that, two: I also want the option of a perspective-less universe by taking my camera far away and zooming way in. Depending on the placement, I can simulate an isometric space, which is the CAD-like look I'm after. The problem is, LW doesn't render the edges well with high focal lengths--past about a 25 zoom factor I get either overrender or underrender of some edge lines, and no amount of tweaking the Edge Z Scale in Item Properties resolves this. At a zoom of 25, my grid isn't really parallel enough.

Can anyone suggest a workaround? Perhaps a plug-in for an isometric camera? A way of compositing or combining a hidden-line WF over a solid render? Thanks for your help!

Also, a real newbie question: why do I get checkerboard (transparency?) artifacts when I turn on anti-aliasing? This occurs despite setting transparency to 0 and alpha to surface opacity in the surface Editor. Running LW 7.5c on a Mac G4 OS X.

[riki]

Maybe give one of these a burl

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.CFM?ID=1751

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.cfm?ID=1600

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.cfm?ID=1257

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.cfm?ID=245

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.cfm?ID=1175

http://www.flay.com/GetDetail.cfm?ID=1487

[munky]

yes there is a plug in that does what you want I think it's here

http://www.kolumbus.fi/erkki.halkka/plugpak/index.html

check it out


regards

paul

[iandavis]

I don't know if this will apply to the way you have your wireframes set up but in object properties/render try setting the pixel size to <1 like '.5'

A while ago I was trying to render a wireframe version of a ship I was working on in order to print it out. The only way I could get the ship to render as anything but a big MASS of wireframe was to reduce the line size below 1 pixel.

Hope this helps.
:p

[Archigram]

Thank you folks. I am sorting through your suggestions. Some of the plugins are windows only, but I will keep trying. I appreciate your help!

db

[munky]

the eki's plugpak stuff are lscripts and deffinitely work on the mac you can try them for free and the don't cost much to buy The free ones are fully useable but have builtin delays and annoyin things.


the plugin you want is called fakemetric camera and is in the above plugpak


regards

paul