i just did a test in 2.42 just to verify the advice i gave on an earlier thread, and i noticed for the second time ( the fist it was against hair, so it thought it was a particle on top of hair thing ) , that when rendering against a material instead of against the world background, the particles simply disappear alltogether. could this be some huge bug, or am i missing something?
i as well have been having problems i was trying to make it look like there was a flame inside a glass ball, useing particles and every time i try to render it it will not show up but if i remove the flame from the glass it works just fine, i thout i was just messing up so i used a flame from a blend file by jason and it still wouldent work. heres a pic hope its noting to big maybe somthing that is going wroung in blender or somthing.
ps i didnt mean to hijack your post i figured it was the same problem but if i am hijacking i am really sorry.
chrome.
Attachments
I think the problem in Chrome’s situation is that as long as the raytracer was in Blender halo particles were not raytraced, meaning that they won’t show up in reflections or ray transparency ect…, you’ll probably have to settle with planes with a halo texture on them if you need them to be raytraced (I think particles do get detected when using dupliverts)
sorry i really didnt mean to hijack your post i really thout my issue pertained was the same as yours i was kidna tierd when i posted seemed like it made since at the time. icoxo i tryed dupliverts and it renders the particles just not the halo not really sure where to go with that. i dont need to animate this so i am still trying to deside how i want to do it i am just trying to get a flame in a glass it dont have to be done with particle just has to look pritty good and conviceing. what exactly do you mean by putting a texture on a plane wouldent that just look really flat and strange?.
as i said i really am sorry for hijacking.
chrome.
could this be some huge bug, or am i missing something?
You’re missing something. I can’t repeat the problem. Do the particles and the mesh have the same material?
%<
Go to the textures tab and select blend, then select halo, set alpha to 0 and z transparency and set the texture to affect the alpha and leave it at orco or UV mapping. For an all around effect regardless of position you probably want it to have 3 planes crossing each other. Also set the material to shadeless.
don’t sweat it, chrome 
fligh, i’ll see if i can repeat it