Software vs Hardware rendering

[FBMachine]

Well I'm certainly not a particle expert, but I think I can answer the question. :wip: Software renders are done with Render View and Batch Render. Hardware renders are done with the Hardware Render Buffer. The difference is the software renders use Maya's rendering engine, and the hardware renders use your graphics card to help render. For particles, in the Particle Render Type drop down box in the attribute editor, the (s/w) types use the software renderer, and the rest you have to use the Hardware Render Buffer, and you can then composite the particles with the rest of the scene in your compositing program. In the options for the Hardware Render Buffer make sure to click Geometry Mask so you only render the particles, and software render everything else then composite them. If you pick a software render type for the particles, you can just render them with everything else though. I hope that helps. I'm just about to go to sleep, so sorry if this is hard to read.
Dan;)

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