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Particle Area Radius (units) | blendRadiusUnits – Specifies the size of the particle area. This option is critical to the performance. The larger the Particle Area Radius, the longer it would take for the Particle Texture to render. In case you are using the Particle Texture as a Color Map in a Phoenix Particle Shader, always start with a very small Particle Area Radius - this way the particles would render with black edges. Keep increasing the Particle Area Radius until the black edges are no longer visible, and this way you would get the best render speed for your setup.

Animate Area Radius by Age | animateBlendRadiusByAge – You could use this option only when you have animated the Particle Area Radius. When Animate Area Radius by Age is off, the animation of Particle Area Radius affects all particles simultaneously. When you enable Animate Area Radius by Age, the animation of Particle Area Radius will be read using the Age of each particle. This way the animation curve will start from the birth time of each particle, instead of the first timeline frame. This way at one point in time different particles could use different moments of the animation, if they were born at different times. Note: The particle ages must be exported from the Output rollout of the Phoenix Simulator.

Areas Blending Method | blendingMethod [ 0 1 2 3 ] – Specifies the method for blending particles that have overlapping areas.

Equal | blendingMethod [ 0 ] – All particles add the same contribution to the end result.
Proportional | blendingMethod [ 1 ]  – The contribution of each particle is determined by the distance to the particle.
Biggest | blendingMethod [ 2 ]  – The particle with the biggest contribution determines the end result.
Voronoi | blendingMethod [ 3 ] – The nearest particle is used.

Blend Alpha | blendAlpha – When enabled, the alpha of the sampled color texture is blended. Otherwise, it is set to 1.

Use Color From Particle Channel | colorFromPartChan – When enabled, the particle areas are colored using a specified particle channel of the connected particle system, such as Age, Size, Velocity, Position, etc. Note that if the particle channel is a vector channel, such as RGB, Position and Velocity, it can directly be shown as color in each particle area, but if the channel is a scalar such as the Size, Age or ID of the particles, it will produce grayscale color, unless you use the Remap Color option.

Remap Color | partColorRemap – This option remaps a different color for scalar particle channels such as the Size, Age or ID of the particles, or a component from vector particle channels such as RGB, Position, or Velocity. For example, you can remap the particle Age which ranges from 0 (black) for newborn particles to several tens or hundreds (seconds), to a gradient from blue color for newborn particles to red color for old ones - you can do this by placing the blue color at position zero in the color gradient, and placing the red color at a value that is the maximum particle Age (in seconds). You need to know the value ranges of the particle channels in order to remap them correctly - check the Particle Channel Ranges page for more information. When remapping vector channels, you have to set the Use Color Component option to one of the vector components of the channel.

Use Color Component | remapColorComponent – Specifies the vector component of channels such as RGB, Position, or Velocity to be used when remapping.

     X – Uses the X axis of positions or velocities, or the Red channel from RGB color.
     Y – Uses the Y axis of positions or velocities, or the Green channel from RGB color.
     Z – Uses the Z axis of positions or velocities, or the Blue channel from RGB color.
     Length – Uses the length of the particle channel. Can be used with the Velocity channel when you need to remap the Speed of the particles to colors. If X, Y or Z are used with Velocity, this will remap the Speed respectively in the X, Y or Z directions.