Originally posted by Chirone
you can apply textures and they will show up in renders
depends on the type of particle you're using
if it doesn't have (s/w) next to it it wont show up in hardware render, but if it doesn't then it wont show up in software render
they all show up in mental ray (why you'd use the other two is beyond me)
The fisrt part dosent really make sense.
If they have S/W next to them then they can be rendered with maya software renderer, if thy dont then there only hardware renderable, though any particle will show up in hardware, and as you said they all show up in MR
As to why you would bother, well hardware is super fast and software is a lot faster than MR which is a big consideration when rendering for comping.
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle