These are the options in the Paint Effects Rendering Options section of the Render Settings window, Maya Software tab. These options are only available when using the Maya Software renderer.

Enable Stroke Rendering

Turn this option on to render the Paint Effects strokes in your scene. If this option is off, the scene renders without strokes. This option is turned on by default.

Oversample

Renders the Paint Effects at double resolution for better anti-aliasing.

Oversample Post Filter

Applies a weighted filter to the oversampled image for better smoothing.

NoteThe Oversample and Oversample Post Filter options are particularly useful when rendering Paint Effects fur or hair. Also the new Mesh Brush Type requires oversample be used to anti-alias the tube edges if you don’t convert the Paint Effects to polygons.

Only Render Strokes

Turn this option on to render only the Paint Effects strokes in your scene. You may want to render the strokes separately from the rest of your scene, then composite the strokes with the scene. For details, see Create a composite of Paint Effects strokes and your scene.

NoteWhen you render strokes only, you must also specify an .iff file in the Read This Depth File field. The file can be empty. It does not have to have depth.

Read This Depth File

If you are compositing your rendered scene with rendered Paint Effects strokes, type the location and name of the depth file for the rendered scene. Use the absolute path name, for example:

/h/username/rainyday.iff (Linux) c:\username\rainyday.iff (Windows) /username/rainyday.iff (Mac OS X))

If you are rendering an animation, and have an animated input file, place the # character where the frame number is in the source input files.For example, for files foo1.iff, foo2.iff, and so on, enter foo.#.iff. For files foo1, foo2, and so on, enter foo.#. When you render, the # character is replaced with the current frame number.

For more information, see Create a composite of Paint Effects strokes and your scene.

NoteIt is best to supply a depth file and allow Maya Paint Effects to do the compositing rather than attempt to composite Paint Effects as a post process using a compositor. Maya Paint Effects uses a multi-layer depth and RGB buffers to perform the compositing with the scene and can achieve a much better composite than a post process compositor can achieve.

Also, if you do not supply a depth file (an .iff file with depth information), Paint Effects strokes that are behind objects in your scene will be rendered. Maya will not overwrite your existing images supplied as a depth file—the output will be named as shown at the top of the Render Settings window.