Blending Into Wireframe
by Kenny M

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make an object "blend" from a fully textured surface, to a wireframe.
This tutorial requires basic knowledge of blender!

Start blender and delete the default plane.
Add a UVSphere and scale it to about 3.0 or so. Use CNTRL to limit the units to .1. Hit F9 and click the "Set Smooth" button.
Add a plane directly beneath the sphere and scale it bigger to make a floor.
You're screen should now look something like this:

Now, you want to duplicate the sphere, and put it exactly where the other sphere is.
Add a few lamps and do a quick test render.
You're screen should now look something like this:

Select the larger sphere and hit F5 to get the material buttons.
Add a new material and name it "BigSphere" or whatever you want.
Choose a good color, and then hit F6 to get the texture buttons.
Click the "Blend" button, then click "Quad"
Now switch back over to the material buttons(F5), and do the following:
On the right of your screen are a series of buttons that are aqua colored. Deselect "Col" and select "Alpha".
Now, move the "Alpha" slider in the middle of the screen to 0.000, and click the "ZTransp" button.
Now when you do a test render, you should see you're color blending to a grey color.
If you have any questions, you can copy my material settings:



Still with me? Now, select the smaller sphere and go to the material buttons(F5).
Add a material and choose a cool color.
Now click on "Wire" in the middle of you're screen.
Render your image. Pretty cool, huh?

 

Other suggestions


You can use and image texture in place of the blend texture to create interesting effects,
however, you must use grayscale pictures. Take a look at some of the examples that I created, using some simple images:

Blend Texture:

Others: