9

Render Operator 207
Inter face
The user interface appears in the parameters panel,
ontherightsideoftheParticleViewdialog.
Ty pe—Lets you render particles as bounding
boxes or geometry, or disable the particle system
at render time, or en able the particle system but
prevent it from sending renderable particles to the
3ds Max renderer. Default=Geometry.
•
None—Theparticlesystem(orevent,ifused
locally) is considered non-renderable, and
therefore is never evaluated during render.
•
BoundingBox—Particlesrenderasboxeswhose
sizes represent the p article geometry extents.
Use this option with complex particle systems
to speed up test renders.
•
Geometr y—Particles render with their actual
geometry.
Use this option with simpler particle systems,
and for the final render.
•
Phantom—Use this option w hen you want
Particle Flow to function normally, calculating
the animation at each f r ame, but not to render
geometry directly. An example would be when
you ’re using a Final Step Update script (page
2–140) to pass data from the particle system to
other objects in the scene.
Visible %—Thepercentageofparticlesthatrender.
Range=0 to 100. Default=100.
Lowerthisvalueforfasterrenderingofcomplex
particle systems.
You can also reduce the number of particles in the
system at render time with the Quantity Multiplier
> Render setting (page 2–137).
Render Result group
These settings determine how the system conve rts
particles to mesh format for rendering. By default,
the software renders a ll particles as a single mesh
per event, which provides for the most efficient
operation under most conditions. However, in
some situations each particle should be converted
to an individual mesh object by turning on Mesh
Per Particle. For example, with particles each of
whose face count exceeds 10,000, it’s most efficient
to render a mesh per particle. Alternatively, you
can opt to combine particles in to multiple meshes
by specifying a face count and number of particles
per mesh.
Certain renderers might require a non-default
setting for Render Result. Consult the renderer
documentation for further information.
Note: The number of particles Particle Flow
can handle per frame is limited only by system
resources, but each single mesh is allowed a
maximum of 5,000,000 faces or vertices. If the
total number of faces or vertices in a mesh exceeds
5,000,000, Par ticle Flow ig nores particles beyond
this limit.
Single Mesh—Sends the renderer one mesh object
comprising all particles in the system.
Multiple Meshes—Sends the renderer the specified
number of mesh objects, each containing the
specified number of particles. If the result of
dividing the total number of particles by the
Particles p/Mesh value is less than the specified
Mesh Count value, some of the meshes might
contain few or no faces.