Hardware rendering without hardware render buffer (Maya 2018)

[Anonymous]

I am currently following a tutorial, the pdf of which can be found via: https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-01-fall/LEARNINGMAYA2.pdf

Unfortunately, this pdf is based on a previous version of Maya (I am using Maya 2018 with an educational license). I have to hardware render a particle effect, which in the tutorial is done via the Hardware render buffer. As this does no longer exist in the most recent version of Maya, I am wondering how I can achieve the same results with the tools at hand. The picture shows the instructions, some of which I cannot seem to find anywhere in Maya 2018. I'm mainly in trouble with the Alpha source and Geometry mask settings. How do I tackle this without the Hardware render buffer? Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

It's actually removed unfortunately. Apparently there is a way to access it still via some Legacy mode, but as I have only started learning Maya a few days ago, I haven't figured that out yet. However, I can't believe that the method with the buffer, including the settings with the mask and alpha channel doesn't have some sort of equivalent in Maya 2018. Wouldn't that be strange?

[mspeer]

Hi!

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-shading-lighting-and/hardware-render-buffer-in-maya-2018/td-p/76...

[Anonymous]

Hi! Thanks, but I already tried to access the legacy mode. It doesn't seem to work for me, maybe due to the educational license? It's fine if I cannot access it as long as I can get the same results with the other hardware rendering tools.