particle instancer

[shadevfx]

Hi guys. Anyone have much experience using the particle instancer?

I am having strange results where the particle type is reverting to spheres instead of the instances.

The REALLY weird thing is that I had this working, vray rendered an entire sequence fine with instanced objects... and now, doesnt work at all.
here is the exact error

// Warning: Particle system coffeeBeansPartsShape_system1 render type is not supported. Using spheres instead.

[shadevfx]

solved the problem... I guess if you dont hide the original particle system.. and it is "points" particle type, vray will bail and somehow not render the instancer.

Hide the system and you're good to go!

[vlado]

Thanks for the pointer; will try to see if there is something wrong there.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vladimir.nedev]

Most likely the objects you are instancing were smaller than the default spheres that are used to render the particles. So the objects instanced by the instancer are inside the spheres used for the particles. Since Maya renders the particles as points, it is the other way around, the particles are inside the instanced objects. In terms of performance, you should hide the particles when rendering with Maya too.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[shadevfx]

thats quite possible indeed. Definitely best to hide the particles always. Just a bonehead move on our part