Before you can preview or render hardware particles, you must set up the Hardware Render Buffer. For complete information on setting up the Hardware Render Buffer, see Hardware Render Buffer window in the Rendering guide.

The following procedure describes a typical set up; you may decide to use a slightly different procedure.

To prepare to preview or render hardware particles

1. Select Window > Rendering Editors > Hardware Render Buffer.

   The Hardware Render Buffer is displayed.

2. From the Cameras menu, select the camera you want to render from.
   TipYou can adjust the camera’s view within the Hardware Render Buffer using the Alt (Windows and Linux) or Option (Mac OS X) key and the mouse buttons.
3. Select Render > Attributes.

   The Hardware Render Globals Attribute Editor is displayed.

4. Set the following attributes:

   Filename	The base name for all rendered image files.
   Extension	The format of the extension(s) added to the base name for all rendered image files.
   Start Frame	The first frame to render.
   End Frame	The last frame to render.
   By Frame	The increment between frames that you want to render.
   Image Format	The format for saving rendered image files.

5. Do one of the following:
   • To use a standard image resolution, click the Select button to the right of the Resolution attribute and select a preset image resolution.
   • To use a custom image resolution, in the Resolution field type:

     <formatName> <width> <height> <deviceAspectRatio>

   For example, type:

   MyFormat 400 200 2

6. Do one of the following:
   • If you plan to composite the hardware rendered image(s), set Alpha Source to either Hardware Alpha (if your computer has a hardware alpha buffer) or Luminance.
   • If you do not plan to composite the hardware rendered image(s), set Alpha Source to Off.
7. If you plan to composite the hardware rendered image(s), and will need depth information during compositing (that is, the distance that particles are from the camera), turn on Write ZDepth.