Hardware and Software Rendering

# 1 24-05-2004 , 02:50 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2002

Location: Memphis, TN

Posts: 147

Hello all my Mayan friends,

I have a quick question.....I get a bit confused between the difference in the Hardware Renderer and the Software renderer.
What is the difference and why does certain effects (Dynamics) only render on one type of render?

Can ya tell I am a bit confused? (HA ha ha)

Thanks in advance,

SuperDave71:p user added image

"Yeah I want my Cheezy Poofs!"

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# 2 26-05-2004 , 08:34 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2003

Location: Auroville, India

Posts: 62

Dear SuperDave,

simply put, hardware rendering uses only your hardware to render the image from the render buffer and therefore will not render reflections and not support raytracing, as this requires calculations, which brings you to software rendering: software rendering depends on code/calculations/computations (whatever) for all these effects. Hardware rendering is fast because it does not do all these calculations, and software rendering is slow because of the calculations. This, again, is why (some type of)particles can only be hardware rendered, where you need to use other programs like After Effects to add glow or so to them.

hope this is a bit clear. I have the details of both rendering options clearly defined in a book at home - will pass those on when i get home.

Cheers

A conscious power has drawn the plan of life...

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# 3 26-05-2004 , 12:43 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2003

Location: Auroville, India

Posts: 62

Here is an excerpt from Learning Maya 5 - Dynamics:

Maya provides two types of rendering for particles: software and hardware.

Hardware rendering uses the graphics buffer and graphics memory of your computer to draw the image to the display and then takes a smapshot of this image. This snapshot is then written to a file as a rendered image. This technique of using the hardware rendering capabilities of your computer has the advantage of being very fast but also the limitation of few rendering advantages such as shadows, reflections, and post-process effects like glow. [...]

Software rendering of particles will allow you to do post-process effects such as glow and incandescence as well as interactive effects of reflection, object occlusion, and shadows. The price for this functionality is time.

Hope this clears some...

A conscious power has drawn the plan of life...

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