Particle Settings
Every control in the Particles panel — the quick multipliers, colours, emission, forces, look, custom graphics, and the Custom System builder.
Reference
- Tool
- Particles
- Panel
- Particles
- Section
- Selected effect inspector
Selecting an effect in the Effects in scene list expands it into its inspector: four quick multipliers, then four groups — Colors, Emission & Duration, Forces, and Look.
The inspector edits the effect that is placed in the shot, not the preset it came from, so two copies of the same preset can be tuned separately. Sliders show the values the preset was authored with; the ranges below are the limits the panel allows, and a default is given only where the control has one independent of the preset.
Canvas background
Sets the canvas background colour. Three preset swatches are offered — a warm paper white, a pure black, and a near-black midnight blue — alongside a colour well for any other colour. The swatches are unlabelled.
Effects in scene
This section appears once at least one effect is placed. Each effect has a row carrying a selection control and its name, and a control that deletes it. Clear all removes every effect in the scene.
Below the list: Custom system… opens the builder, and the preset browser follows. Tap the canvas to drop the armed effect; tap a placed effect to select it, and drag to move it.
Amount, Size, Speed, and Glow
These four scale the whole effect at once, on top of everything the preset specifies. All four are also keyframable from the effect's timeline row.
Density multiplier. Scales the emission rate and the size of any burst the preset carries.
Multiplies every particle's birth size.
Multiplies every particle's birth speed.
Composites the effect additively, so overlapping particles build towards white. Suited to fire, sparks, and magic; not to smoke or leaves.
Colors
Reference
- Panel
- Particles
- Section
- Colors
A particle takes its birth colour from either a single colour or a palette, then a colour-over-life gradient acts on it as it ages.
An unlabelled colour well at the top of the group sets the colour every particle is born with. The controls below it act on that colour.
A set of colours to choose from at birth instead of the single base colour. The add control appends a swatch; tap a swatch to recolour it; long-press one to remove it. An empty palette means every particle uses the base colour.
Per-channel brightness variation applied at birth, so particles that share a colour are not identical. 0 gives no variation.
A multi-stop gradient sampled across each particle's lifetime — position 0 is birth, position 1 is death.
How the gradient combines with the birth colour. Off tints — the gradient multiplies the particle's own colour, so a palette shows through. On replaces — the gradient dictates the colour outright, which is how the fire ramp works.
The gradient editor
The gradient is shown as a bar with a draggable handle per stop. Drag a handle to move the stop; tap it to select it. The selected stop's row shows a colour well and its position, written as Stop n%.
The add control inserts a stop in the largest gap in the gradient, coloured by sampling the gradient at that position — so adding a stop never changes the ramp, it only gives a new place to edit it. The remove control deletes the selected stop, and is unavailable while only one stop remains.
Emission & Duration
Reference
- Panel
- Particles
- Section
- Emission & Duration
Particles emitted per second. A preset built around a burst rather than a stream sits at 0.
How long a particle lives. A preset's lifetime is a range rather than a single figure; this slider moves its midpoint and keeps the spread in proportion.
How wide the lifetime range is around that midpoint, shown as a percentage. 0 makes every particle live exactly as long as every other.
The midpoint of the birth-size range, handled the same way as Lifetime.
The half-angle of the emission cone, from 0 (a perfectly parallel stream) to 1 (a full sphere). Ignored when Direction is Random.
Shape takes the direction from the emitter's shape — outwards from a sphere, along a cone's axis. Random sends every particle in an arbitrary direction and ignores Spread. Aimed fires straight up the screen.
Emits for as long as the shot runs. Turning it off reveals Duration.
How long the emitter stays active, measured from the effect's birth frame. Visible only while Loop is off.
Seconds of simulation run before the effect's first visible frame, so the field starts full rather than filling up on screen. Essential for slow ambient effects — snow that begins at the top of frame reads as a mistake.
The size of the particle pool. Once it is full, no more are emitted until others die, so a low cap silently thins a high rate.
The emitter's shape is fixed when the system is authored — it comes from the preset, or from the Custom System builder's Shape control. There is no shape control on a placed effect.
Forces
Reference
- Panel
- Particles
- Section
- Forces
Four forces have sliders. The panel's convention is that gravity is quoted by its screen direction: positive pulls down the screen, negative floats up it. Wind blows sideways, and turbulence swirls.
Constant acceleration. Positive pulls down the screen; negative floats the effect upward, which is how fire, smoke, steam, and bubbles rise.
A horizontal target velocity that particles are pushed towards, rather than a constant push — so particles approach the wind's speed and then travel with it.
The amplitude of the curl-noise field. Raises how far particles are pushed off course; it does not change how fine the swirls are.
Resistance proportional to velocity. Higher values bleed off birth speed faster, so particles slow to a drift.
A slider can add a force that was not there
These four sliders find the force in the effect and edit it — and, if the preset has no such force, add it. Raising Turbulence on a preset that was authored without turbulence gives it turbulence at a default frequency; raising Wind on a still preset gives it wind.
Look
Reference
- Panel
- Particles
- Section
- Look
The render family. Sprite draws a flat facing quad, Streak stretches each particle along its velocity, Mesh instances a procedural shape, and Graphic draws an imported image. Switching family keeps the blend mode and seeds sensible defaults for the new family.
Soft · Round · Star · Square. The sprite's silhouette. Shown for the Sprite style only.
How far the sprite's edge is feathered. High values are what make smoke and fog read as volume rather than as discs. Shown for the Sprite style only.
The instanced mesh: Leaf · Maple leaf · Petal · Flower · Confetti · Snowflake · Star · Debris · Sphere. Shown for the Mesh style only.
How far each particle is stretched along its velocity. Low values give short dashes; high values give long rain-like lines. Shown for the Streak style only.
Alpha composites normally. Glow composites additively, building towards white where particles overlap.
Mesh particles are always alpha-blended
The Mesh style composites with alpha regardless of the Blend setting. To make mesh particles glow, use the Glow (additive) toggle at the top of the inspector.
Custom graphics
The Graphic style draws imported images instead of a generated sprite. Its picker appears in place of the sprite and mesh rows.
The images this effect draws, each with a control that removes it. With more than one chosen, each particle picks one of them at random when it is born.
Opens the photo picker. Up to eight images can be selected at once.
Turns the active layer's drawing into a particle sprite. Hide the other layers first to isolate the object being captured.
Graphics imported previously and not already used by this effect. Tap one to add it.
The Custom System builder
Reference
- Panel
- Custom System
Custom system… opens a floating Custom System window that assembles an effect from scratch rather than from a preset. Add to scene builds it and adds it to the effect list, where it is edited with the same inspector as any preset. An unlabelled colour well in the Look group sets the birth colour, which starts as a warm amber.
Point · Box · Sphere · Cone · Circle. Where particles are born.
Scales the shape: a box's extents, a sphere's or circle's radius, a cone's base.
Particles per second.
The longest a particle lives. The built system varies lifetime between 70% and 100% of this.
Birth speed, likewise varied between 70% and 100% of the value set.
The half-angle of the emission cone.
Positive pulls down the screen, negative floats up it. A value of 0 omits the force entirely.
Resistance proportional to velocity. 0 omits the force.
Curl-noise amplitude. 0 omits the force, which is why the builder's default system is a clean ballistic emitter.
Soft · Round · Star · Square · Streak · Leaf · Confetti. The first four are sprites, Streak is a velocity-stretched sprite, and the last two are meshes.
Alpha or Glow. It has no effect on the Leaf and Confetti looks, which are meshes and always alpha-blended.
Birth size, varied between 70% and 100% of the value set.
Per-channel brightness variation at birth.
Fades each particle's alpha from full to nothing across its life. Off holds it at full until it dies.
A built system emits 4000 particles at most and is named Custom.