Attached Link: Particles 2.3 Q&A and Freebies Thread

Hi all--Sorry to hear that you're stumbling on the learning curve! Currently, the best resource for Particles 2 is the Q&A and Freebies thread. I check that thread daily, and there's a number of regular users there. (All of the Particles 2 freebies are also listed on http://www.poseworks.com/) I've been working on a basic shaping tutorial to address the concerns of users who are getting lost, but it's not likely to be ready for another week or so. For people who are starting out right now, I recommend playing with some of the premade figures, tweaking different settings and looking at the results. Here's some advice on common problems: **What shape should I use?** It depends on the effect you want to get, and which Poser version you're using. *Poser 4 Pro Users* will likely want to use Sprites for most effects, because you can throw a transparency map on them and achieve a volumetric look (see the fire presets for examples). *Poser 5 and 6 Users* will probably want to use Spheres or Pills for most effects (although sprites definitely still come in handy) because they can use Poser's shaders to do all kinds of interesting things (see the WitchFire freebie). **What's all the "age distribution" stuff?** Age relates to how long it's been since the particle was created (emitted, spawned, what have you). A particles with age 0 is one that's just been born; one with age 1 is one that's about to die. Now this is all well and good, but you just created the particle figure, so they must all be at Life 0, right? Nope--Particles 2 pre-ages the particle figure, so you'll always have at least one particle at Life 0 and at least one at Life 1. Using the age distribution scale or range, you can change how Particles 2 pre-ages the particles. (So that you can do things like get clumps of particles at the same point in their lifespan) When you set up a range for a parameter (Location-Y, for instance), what you're telling Particles 2 is how you want each particle's values to change as they age. The range graph reads value-at-birth (left side) to value-at-death (right side). So, going back to Location-Y, let's say you set the miniumum at 0.0 and the max at 4.0. Now, going into the range editor, the default range is random, and looking at the graph, it's a big jumble of different values. With a random range, a particle's age never matters, it'll always just get a random value. Now, if you change the range type to Linear, you'll see that the line starts low (at birth) and rises (at death). If you were to apply this range to the particles, they would be born at the minimum value, and reach the maximum value when they died. If you changed the range type to Easy Sin, you'll see that the line goes up and down and up and down. If you were to apply that range to the particles, they would go up and down while they aged. The Range Editor has a few features for every different function that you can use to help you shape how the particles will behave while they age. You can add in a little bit of randomness using deviation, and squish lines using falloff among other things. There are a lot of features to the software, and it's definitely possible to get lost in it. If there's a specific effect you're trying to create, or a specific feature that you don't understand, drop me an email < dan.nicho@gmail.com > and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Hope that helps!