Visualizer

The Particle-Visualizer effect renders and flattens the particle system down to a single plane. You can plug a peg module into the left port to animate the position of the whole particle system. Plugging a peg into the right port will move the depth where the flat plane is generated, so you can move it behind or in front of various other drawing layers in your scene. You can even have two Visualizers with pegs in the right in-ports that are at different depths to display some particles in front of and some particles behind a character or drawing in the scene.

Visualizer Properties

Parameter Description
Force Render as Dots Temporarily renders your system as Dots when previewing a simulation. All drawings are ignored and the system is forced to render as dots.
Note: You can also use the option View > Particle > Show Particles as Dots in OpenGL. When enabled, the particles will always be displayed as dots in the OpenGL preview mode to make playback speed faster for heavy scenes.
Rendering Order

Lets you set the order in which you want the particles to appear in the render.

Back to Front: Added particles will appear behind existing particles.

Front to Back: Added particles will appear in front of existing particles.

Oldest to Youngest: Older particles will appear behind younger particles.

Youngest to Oldest: Older particles will appear in front of younger particles.

Ascending Types: Lower types will appear behind higher types.

Descending Types: Lower types will appear in front of higher types.

Fix Output Alpha This is an important option when using some filters like Screen or Multiply in the Blend Mode that can be specified in the Rendering tab of the Emitter. When working with premultiplied images, if the alpha is not fixed in the visualizer, you may see some unusual artifacts.
Scale Particle System Using Parent Peg Respects the scaling of a particle system so you can position and resize it as you like. Old scenes with particle system will still work as this option is disabled.
Global Scaling Factor Lets you set the scaling factor for particle system.