Skip to main content
S
Steve5D7C
Inspiring
February 28, 2026
Question

Particle Playground inconsistent results

  • February 28, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 72 views

I’m working with Particle Playground the most heavily I’ve ever used it, and using it for some fairly unusual purposes (essentially layer instancing).

 

It works fine overall, but I am noticing some significant inconsistencies with the results I’m getting when I preview a comp versus what I get when I render out the whole project. In particular there seem to be far fewer particles/instances being generated in the full render than there appear to be when I preview. There’s a lot of randomness going on so it’s hard to really quantify, but visually this definitely seems to be the case.

 

I’ve monitored many of my renders and AE does not appear to be running out of RAM -- the highest I’ve seen the RAM use so far has been about 80% of my 256Gbs.

 

Most of my experience with particles has been in 3D (Maya specifically), and I know particle systems are quirky, but this seems to be a consistent problem. I know Particle Playground is super old, though I’d never realized quite how useful it can be til this project. But can anyone throw any light on this?

    1 reply

    nishu_kush
    nishu_kush
    Legend
    March 3, 2026

    That’s not ideal.

     

    What are your system specifications (CPU, GPU, OS version)? Are you able to replicate the issue on a new project? Can you share the project file with me for testing? Feel free to share it via DM if you prefer not to share it publicly.

    Looking forward to your response.

     

    Thanks,

    Nishu

    S
    Steve5D7CAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 3, 2026

    It may be difficult for me to share this just because the source layer I’m using is footage, so quite large. Imma do some more testing first. So far though, I am continuing to get completely different results when I render the project or even pre-render particle comps. I’m seriously wondering if I should just do a screen capture of my preview and use that, though this is hardly ideal.

     

    My system is pretty robust -- HPz840 with 48 cores, 256Gb of RAM, RTX-3080 GPU, Windows 10 Pro. I’m running AE 2024.

     

    I think partially the problem is that docs and information for *exactly* how Particle Playground works remain a bit thin, and there’s a few things I’m very unclear about:

     

    1. Caching: There’s no explicit caching system for particles (what I’m used to with 3D apps such as Maya). I’m not clear whether RAM previewing is akin to running and saving out a cache. Anybody know? It doesn’t seem to help with the render issue either way though. And, renders are PAINFULLY slow, even compared to previewing at 100%.
    2. How is time calculated?: With a full dynamic sim such as in 3D, the solver starts when you tell it (say, frame 1). There is no such setting with PP. With a nested comp, does it start at the first frame of the comp containing the particles, and finish when that comp ends? Seems like it, but this is not explicitly explained anywhere that I’ve seen.
    3. Lifespan: Do particles that exit frame continue to live? I am assuming so.
    4. Renders take MUCH longer than previewing, even when previewing at full resolution. What on earth? This should be the other way around and is related to the caching question above.

    Again, I know PP is VERY old, but it is certainly quite an interesting tool still. It’s a shame it seems to have a few dealbreaking quirks about it. I’d really like to see Adobe give it a bit of TLC and bring it up to date (WITHOUT REMOVING FEATURES).

    S
    Steve5D7CAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 3, 2026

    OK, so at least part of the problem I can see here now, with further testing, is that the dynamics (forces) behave completely differently when running a preview at 25% resolution than they do when either previewing or rendering at full resolution (1080p).

     

    Is this normal/expected behavior? And if so, is there some formula for adjusting the (very limited) settings such as the repel strength and diameter so that developing the shot can be done at partial resolution while achieving the same results when rendering at full-rez?

     

    This seems to be a very serious showstopping problem with PP.

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices