how could you render points and wires with constant thickness across the screen space so that perspective wouldn't affect their size?

Im trying to achieve a wireframe effect with sprites at a constant size.

Set your Camera projection parameter to Orthographic instead of perspective.

rob

what im looking for is a classic wireframe type render. i still want perspective on the wires relationship to each other, just not on their thicknesses.

maybe just a simple camera uv projection (UVTexture SOP) onto the points
then simple VOP SOP which will add pscale or width attribute according to uvw coordinate where w is Z distance to camera and uv are normalized screen space XY coordinates
i can make an example for you if i have some time, but for now i hope that info will help you

thanks for the hint.

i've setup the uv texture projected from the camera.

I used “save texture uv to image” which works! but only for stills. how could i get that to render in animation?

I also tried using a flipbook which is a good option. how do you change the interface to black and grey that i see a lot of other people using? i changed the back ground color to black but i can't find that other setting.

also, how can i turn off the display of the camera type text and other info on the top left and right of the viewport?

when i try to render a flipbook with AA, i get a fatal error - segmentation fault.

i thought you are trying to render wires in mantra so therefore i sugested that solution. But from your last post i feel that you just want a wireframe pass which you can do with flipbook as you tried.
here is the tutorial from sidefx http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1305&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]

just a couple of additions to that:

1.) if you want black BG and white lines:
In viewport hid “d” for Display Options
in Background Tab set Color Scheme to Dark

2.) to avoid using AA in flipbook
in DisplayOptions/Optimization/Wireframe Tab set Wire Width and check Smooth Lines

3.) to get rid of some info on flipbook renders
in DisplayOptions/Guides & Markers Tab uncheck things you do not want to see
one thing left is the camera info in top right corner
you can resize your viewport so it gets to grey stripe outside the camera format and in flipbook check Crop Out View Mask Overlay
the info in top left corner is just MPlay info and it won't be saved to the file

4.) be sure yor viewport is approximately the same size as your render because flipbook will take a snapshot of the actual size of the viewport then scale that picture to the resolution you set in flipbook settings and it can cause horrible difference between your flipbooks
so try to rescale your viewport, open Flipbook Settings and in Size Tab
set/keep zoom at 100%, uncheck Resolution and you can now see actual dimensions of the viewport next to it. So try to match those with desired resolution before you check Resolution and set it

queglay
i've setup the uv texture projected from the camera.
I used “save texture uv to image” which works! but only for stills. how could i get that to render in animation?

it was not meant to be used that way, but rather using that uv data on points to modify their width in vops. It's a bit more complicated than using flipbook so try the flipbook solution first

Quick example on wire frame render inside Mantra (rough).

cheers!

thanks alot for that example. i dont understand how that inline code does what it is doing.

problem is it wont render a pure wire object like an lsystem.

queglay
thanks alot for that example. i dont understand how that inline code does what it is doing.

problem is it wont render a pure wire object like an lsystem.

Well, maybe not, but wires render as lines by default (specially with ‘width’ attribute on them), isn't it?

right! i guess i just need to set their width based on camera distance.

queglay
right! i guess i just need to set their width based on camera distance.

Sorry, I didn't get you were talking about wire geometry.