Variations on the particle age map: output, falloff, rgb tint

Defaults for particle age settings are a little misleading. If you use them, you might not even see the full value of your #1 and #1 colors.

Age #1 is the point at which color 1 starts transitioning to color 2

Age #2 is the point at which color 2 is 100%

Age #3 is the point at which color 3 becomes 100%

So the tip is, increase the #1 color and decrease the #3 color.

Note – in particle flow, you use a material dynamic operator to work with particle age.

Likewise in the gradient map for the opacity slot, the color 2 is the point at which the gradient is 100% color 2.

Output

Try this in your particle age slot. Make the first color an output. this will enable you to specify a color and increase the illumination specifically. [You don’s want to increase the output of the grays and blacks]

Here we basically flatten out the blues and tweak the red and green. Output is increase to 2.0

RGB tint

Another version is to use a tint map

Falloff

Yet another version uses a falloff in the rgb tint map ... this affords a lot of flexibility, you can easily control where any color appears, thanks to the mix curve in combination with the parent particle age settings.. Not the use of OBJECT falloff direction with fresnel. Also, the white and black color blocks are swapped.

the final plus for using the falloff map is it has output and color map curve built in.

Mix Map

Yet one more method ... use a mix map ... is also has output and the color map curve. The advantage is, the little mixing curve is fast and easy to use.