The settings you use to produce your final rendered image or sequence of images depend on a number of factors, including:
The changes you make in the Render Settings window affect the entire scene. Often, it makes sense to adjust settings on a per-object setting.
Render settings for the Hardware renderer, the Maya Hardware 2.0 renderer, the Maya software renderer, the Maya Vector renderer are available from the Render Settings window.
The Common tab of the Render Settings window contains the attributes common to most of the renderers, which decreases the number of parameters you need to modify when switching between renderers. Settings specific to the chosen renderer are available in a another tab.
For detailed descriptions of the settings in the Render Settings window, see Render Settings window.
To open the Render Settings window
You can edit settings in the Common tab and the renderer-specific tab. For more information, see Render Settings window.