Sprites and Polygons-NEW
Custom particles allow the use of layers as 2D sprites (as in version 1.5) and as the new Textured Polygon type.

Light Me Up-NEW
Shade all particle types from up to 128 lights in After Effects. Shading can emulate light falloff to make the lighting results look more natural.

Dynamic Self-shadowing-NEW
Shadowlet rendering can cast shadows on both main and aux particles, adding realistic self-shadowing from a single light source.

Advanced Physics Engine-IMPROVED
Particular now offers support for glitch free-animation of turbulent properties.

Backward Compatibility-NEW
Projects from earlier versions will render with similar results in version 2, but with access to new features and faster output times.

Full Floating-Point Support-NEW
Improved bit-depth support now offers high-quality, 32 bit-per-channel rendering, allowing full-range output with HDR results.

User-driven Improvements-IMPROVED
Version 2 offers a number of small improvements, including: custom particle layers no longer have to start at the same frame as Particular; a new custom particle time-sampling mode; support for the Adobe color picker; and many other small bug fixes and enhancements.

Auxiliary Particles
In Particular, particles can emit their own particles, enabling objects to leave bright or smoky trails.

Physics Time Factor
Freeze time while moving the camera around in a scene, Matrix-style.

Non-Square Pixels

Particular handles non-square pixel aspect ratios correctly.

Reflection Maps-NEW

Textured Polygon particles can use a layer as a reflection map to add dynamic color changes to particles as they rotate in 3D. This feature is ideal for adding glints to rotating particles.

Streak It Up-NEW
Streaklet particles resemble long-exposure light effects, as seen in Apple's iPod Nano Remastered commercials.

Transform Your World-NEW
The Transform World feature allows the entire workspace to be offset or rotated in 3D space without moving the After Effects camera for increased animation flexibility.

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation-NEW
Textured Polygon particles can be fully rotated in 3D space, with random rotation direction and speed. Also, particles can be automatically oriented to the direction of their motion.

Millions and Millions of Particles-NEW
The maximum particle limit now allows quick bursts of up to one million particles per second!

Many Views-NEW
Orthographic rendering support allows you to view particles from After Effects' built-in camera views (Top, Right, Left, Bottom), making it much easier to adjust particle motion in 3D space.

Presets for SD and HD-IMPROVED
Version 2 offers 45 updated presets with support for SD and HD resolution.

Camera Integration
Particular offers complete integration with After Effects' comp camera.

Built-In Help
Extensive user guide features step-by-step examples.

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Motion Blur
Built-in motion blur feature lends realism to moving particles.