Rendering fur

The final stage in adding fur to your models is to render the scene. You can render Fur using the Maya Software renderer or the mental ray for Maya renderer.

Related topics

Rendering fur in the Maya software renderer vs. mental ray for Maya

Refer to the following table for the differences between rendering Fur in the Maya software renderer and mental ray for Maya. For mental ray specific Fur render settings, see Render Stats and mental ray.

See also see About the mental ray for Maya renderer in the Rendering guide.

NoteThe way that lighting and shading is calculated on Fur is slightly different between the native Maya renderer and mental ray and therefore the resulting renders will differ slightly in this respect; in both cases, an illumination model known as Kajiya/Kay is used, but the intensity at a given point is calculated in Fur's own model for the native renderer, and in mental ray core for the mental ray renderer. This intensity is then used in the Kajiya/Kay illumination model to calculate diffuse/specular components.

Fur item	Maya software renderer	mental ray for Maya
Support for reflections	None	Fur shows up in reflective material, but is not reflective itself
Support for refractions	None	Fur is refracted through refractive material, but is not refractive itself
Support for colored shadows	Supports only black shadows	Yes
Support for correct penumbra and drop off	Not accurate	Yes
Support for correct DOF composition	Not accurate	Yes
Support for transparency	Fur can be transparent, but is not visible through transparent material (can render in layers and composite)	Fur is able to be transparent and to show up through transparent material
Support for motion blur	3D only	Yes
Need to add Fur Shadowing Attributes to lights to shadow Fur	Yes	No This workflow is supported by mental ray for Maya but an alternative workflow is also available. See Create fur shading and shadows using the mental ray for Maya renderer (Method 2) for more information.
Support for fast fake Back and Root Shading (AutoShade)	Yes	No
Support for ray-traced shadows	No	Yes
Support for depth-map shadows	Yes	Yes
Fur integrated into scene	As a post process via z-depth composite	Fully integrated
Support for area value calculations (Fur Render Settings > Calc. Area Values)	Yes	Yes
Support for 16 bit rendering	No	Yes
Support for texture-mapped lights	No	Yes