Maya Vector renderer

You can use the Maya Vector renderer to create stylized renderings (for example, cartoon, tonal art, line art, hidden line, wireframe) in various bitmap image formats (for example, IFF, TIFF, and so on) or 2D vector formats.

The following 2D vector formats are supported:

Adobe® Flash® (non-interactive) version 3, 4 or 5 (SWF)
Adobe® Illustrator® version 8 (AI)
Encapsulated PostScript Level 2 (EPS)
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

To select the Maya Vector renderer, see Select a renderer.

To set options for the Maya Vector renderer, see Render Settings window.

Example Animations

Notes:

The Maya Vector renderer cannot render certain Maya features (see Maya features that do not vector render).
If you are rendering SWF or SVG files for online delivery, make sure you read Strategies to decrease vector render file size. Otherwise, you may create files that are too large for online delivery.
Due to some limitations in technology (on which the vector renderer is based), increasing the resolution in the Render Settings does not necessarily produce better results.

Maya features that do not vector render

The Maya Vector renderer cannot render the following Maya features.

Maya Feature	Notes
Bump maps
Displacement maps	Use Modify > Convert > Displacement to Polygons to convert displacement maps to polygons for rendering.
Maya® Fluid Effects™	Use Modify > Convert > Fluid to Polygons to convert fluid effects to polygons for rendering.
Image planes
Lights	Only point lights are used during rendering. Only the following light attributes are considered during rendering: light location, light color, light intensity (for point lights), Emit Specular, Use Depth Map Shadows, Use Ray Trace Shadows.
Maya® Fur™
Multiple UVs
Maya® Paint Effects™	Use Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to Polygons to convert paint effects to polygons for rendering. Some Paint Effects may not render as expected. Many Paint Effects brushes use a transparency texture on a single polygon to achieve an effect (for example, the outline of a leaf). However, the Maya Vector renderer only supports per object transparency.
Particles
Post-render effects	Post-render effects include motion blur, fog, glows, and so on.
Shaders	Anisotropic, Lambert, Blinn, Phong and Phong E shaders should produce expected results. Other Maya shaders may produce unexpected results. Multiple shaders assigned to a single NURBS or subdivision surface are not rendered.
Textures	Texture rendering is limited by the Fill Style and the number of polygons. Fill styles that fill individual polygons (Full Color and Mesh Gradient) render textures more accurately than other fill styles, and models that contain more polygons render textures more accurately than models with fewer polygons.
By Frame	By Frame is ignored in Vector rendered filenames