Rendering group

The Rendering group controls how the render mode, depth of field and compositing of the particle output relative to the original layer content.

The full Rendering group.

Render Mode

This menu lets you choose how the particles look when they render. There are two Render Modes.

- Motion Preview - This mode draws dots at each particle, a quick way to preview the motion of particles.
- Full Render - Full Render is the default mode. This creates the expected results rendering all particles with full scale, position and shading. This mode should be used for final output.

Left to right, Render Mode set to Motion Preview and Full Render.

Depth of Field (revised from version 1.5)

Depth of Field (DOF) controls simulate the focus of a real world camera. DOF does this by mimicking the way that a real camera cannot maintain sharp focus in all depths of a scene. Depth of Field is useful for increasing the realism of a scene. It is also useful for matching your Particular effect to footage shot with a real camera where Depth of Field is apparent.

By default, DOF is turned on with the Camera Settings option. Choose the Off option to turn off DOF. Read more about how to use Depth of Field.

The Depth of Field rendering let you turn depth of field rendering on and off.

Left to right, Depth of Field set to Off and Camera Settings (On).

Depth of Field Type (new to version 2.0)

This control sets the kind of render that Depth of Field provides. This setting only affects Sprite and Textured Polygon, and is grayed out for other Particle Types. There are two Depth of Field Types.

- Square (AE). This mode uses the same square aperture that After Effects (AE) uses internally for DOF. This kind of render is useful when other elements are treated with After Effects' own DOF.
- Smooth. This mode gives a smoother DOF effect that in most cases looks more realistic. Its renders slightly slower than the Square mode.

Version 1.5 Note: The Depth of Field Types were previously part of the Render Mode settings. The DOF render is now automatic instead of an option to turn on/off but you can still turn the effect off by using the separate Depth of Field menu.

Transfer Mode (new to version 2.0)

A new feature in the Rendering group is the built-in Transfer Mode options. Now you can apply Particular to a video layer, not just a Solid, and the particles can be composited against the original content. You can also use Transfer Modes to stack multiple instances of the Particular plug-in onto one layer. The Normal mode is typically the best choice for stacking. The default setting is None, or off, which will simply replace the original layer content with the output from Particular.

The Transfer Mode popup gives a list of standard compositing modes.

Opacity

Opacity sets the transparency of the entire Particular effect. This option is active when Transfer Mode is set to any option other than None. The default value of 100 makes the particles fully opaque. Lower values make the particles more transparent.

Motion Blur group

Motion Blur gives a smooth look to fast-moving particles, like a real world camera does. Read more on the Motion Blur group page.