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Particle Area Radius | radius – Specifies the radius 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.

PA | radius_time – You could use this option only when you have animated the Particle Area Radius. When PA is off, the animation of Particle Area Radius affects all particles simultaneously. When you enable PA, 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 roll-out of the Phoenix Simulator. If the particles are imported from another plugin or application, e.g. through the PRT Reader object, you must make sure to export the particles' ages from the other software.

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