Tons of great render options to keep your preview times down.
There is a ton of neat stuff to play with right out of the box and the best way to get started with Particular 2 is to check out the presets and try to reverse-engineer them. This way you'll become more familiar with the controls while still developing a cool effect.
Particular has a graphed filters that let you see how your particle will behave over its life span.
Depth of Options
The key feature of Particular 2 is the depth of options. I reckon you could spend the better part of a year working inside of Particular 2 only to discover new features everyday. They've really thought of it all. Some of the better features that are included in Particular 2 are:
The Streaklet particle is a built in particle that emulates cool light streak effects.
Streaklet Particle: Again, no need to waste time creating a zig-zag shape to make your streak particle, it's in the box!
Textured Polygon Particle: This is the customized particle effect previously known as Sprite. Actually the old versions of Particular already had this feature, but Textured Polygon is different than Sprite in that it can contain 3D textures that are completely interactive with your 3D enviroment, lights and all.
Light Emitters: Your comp light can actually be your particle emitter which lends itself to better 3D control, use with expressions, and dynamic lighting in scenes.
