Rendering fluids

The final stage in creating Fluid Effects is to render the scene. Fluid effects render seamlessly with the rest of your scene. There are some special settings you need to be aware of when rendering fluids.

• Prepare to render fluids
• Cast fluid shadows onto objects
• Cast shadows onto fluids (fluids receive shadows)
• Set the properties of rendered images
• Render scenes with fluid effects
• Optimize rendering times
• Improve the render quality of fluids
  NoteYou can render Maya fluids as volumes or surfaces with mental ray for Maya, and you can attach them as 2D or 3D textures. Fluids are exported to .mi format. For more information, see Export a .mi file and render with mental ray.

  The following are limitations when rendering Fluid Effects with the NVIDIA^® mental ray^® for Maya renderer:

  • You cannot render the pressure grid.
  • Some differences in rendered results may occur.
  • Receive shadows in the Render Stats should be turned on to get self shadowing.