So this is my first time using dynamics ever.
I have an animation that includes particle emitters and a shatter effect explosion triggered by a volume axis and a gravity field. I tried test rendering a short section of just my shatter explosion but the effect didnt render... I got a frame of the unshattered object, then a frame of some pieces all over the place, and then the pieces fell (so the gravity feild was working?). I tried to render it at 24 fps, with mental ray. Obviously I'm doing something wrong. I know the shatter effect will only play correctly on "play every frame" setting, but the final output for this project needs to be 24fps.
My question is basically this: How do you render when using dynamics? What are the rules? Can I use mental ray or do I need to use maya software? Do I need to render from the very beginning or it wont work? (I notice that the simulations in editor often need to be restarted from frame one to come out correctly...)
Please help a noob out, I'm hoping there's an easy answer to this that someone here would know 
