Hello, this is the first Maya fluid I've rendered, I simulated it at the base resolution of 500, which is because it finally started looking good for me at that point. But the render itself took way too long, I used maya software because it was the only renderer giving me good shadows for some odd reason. One frame cost about 40 minutes at the end and I had to stop it before it got worse.

What I'm trying to get at: Is there a way I can render this stuff faster without losing too much detail? Mental Ray didn't give me good shadows and renderman gave me nothing. So maybe something with the base resolution, something with samples? Anything?

Thanks!

Here's the video