Hi,

I am looking for any tips at all to speed up rendering of particles. I am currently rendering my particles as points, with no shadows, and sampling of 1 X 1. The sim/cook time is not an issue here - just the rendering. Since I am pretty new to Houdini, I'm not sure what other factors come into play. I should also mention that all my particles have pretty low opacity - about 5%.

I am getting pretty reasonable times - just looking for any other optimizations I can make to speed it up.

I assume you've tried Properties > Render > Opacity Limit?

I haven't adjusted that parameter, as the manual says the default setting is considered fairly aggressive, and I am using some low-opacity particles.

How does Mantra compare with 3Delight in terms of render speed? I haven't set is up on my machine yet - wondering if it is worth the trouble,