Particle render
 

I want to render my particles with the software window(they are streaks). Do I have to use the hardware renderer, or will the software work???

nah you have to hardware render streaks
--
you can only software render cloud, tube or blobby surface particles

Thanks mumbo!

Awwww.....Crap. Ok, That sucks. How do I have something going through the particles. Do I have to composite it with zdepth or something. As you can see, I am very new to this.

Can you explain your shot a little bit to us in regards to what you are meaning when you say "going through"?

Thanks!

..and btw, don't be affraid, or reluctant to use the hardware renderer.
It works better than most folks think, and because of its' hardware-dependant nature, it can be EXTREMELY fast at rendering.

Once, I had a 6000 particle 20 sec shot that Maya just banged right out in less than 10 minutes or so, WITH 3-pass rendering turned on.

Well, It was just a test, with a ball running through a lot of streaked particles, with them bouncing off and such.

Oh, no prob m8:)

First, add your ball to it's own render layer.
Add your particles to another render layer.

Then, render a pass of just the ball.

Then, in the Hypershade, grab the "Use Background" shader, and apply that to your ball.

Then in the hardware render globals, make sure you have "geometry mask" turned ON.
And also set your hardware render globals to your scenes frame length, and choose an output file type.
(I use tiff or targa)
Also, check that your frame SIZE is correct in there as well.

Then in the hardware render buffer window, runn a pass of your scene, and you will notice that your ball is invisible.
(not really invisible, it just matches the background)

Render out a pass of your particles.

Then in a compositing program like After Effects etc. simply import your ball frames and your particle frames, and layer your particle frames OVER your ball frames.

Most compositors are set up to prompt you if you would like to import your footage that contains an alph channel as:
-Premiltiplied (with color)
-Straight (unmatted)
-Alpha only
-Best guess

..in this case you will want to choose Straight... (I believe)

...sorry, my machine died on me last night, and I won't have Maya for 2 more months untill I can afford a new machine:(

Cool man. Thanks for the help. I will try that out. Its a good thing I bought after effects then eh.

Cool:)