Independently Animate Opacity of Particles in CC Particle World

[johnt53984649]

Is it possible to have the particles in CC particle world independently have their opacity randomly fade in and out? What I mean by this is that if you were to watch a single particle as it moved, its opacity would fade in and out randomly over time and completely independently of any other particle.

There are two "solutions" I've come across so far, but they're not true solutions in the sense that they aren't really that random or independent. For example, on the particle's opacity map, I could do something like this: 

But the problem here is that it's not really random; it's tied to the life of the particle, which can be noticable if they're spawning from the same place. Additionally, it's very difficult to draw nice looking curves with the mouse.

Another "solution" I've considered is using a fractal noise to mask the particles layer and then animate the noise evolution. The problem with this is that it may mask multiple particles that are near each other at the same time, which means that the particles' opacities aren't independent of each other. Additionally, it doesn't look too great when a single particle is on the noise border between black and white where part of the particle is masked and the part other isn't.

Is there any way to truly independently control the opacity of particles in After Effects? If not, what do you do?

[Mylenium]

Nope. Such stuff would require advanced particles that even allow per-particle attributes such as Stardust or in a 3D program like Cinema 4D things like Thinking Particles or XParticles. Similarly, you could kind of fake it with mult-level particles e.g. in Trapcode Particular where the main particle system spawns child particles that partially inherit the parent life cycle and combine it with theri own variation on lifespan. In any case, what you want is not a standard functionality anbd will require some better tools than what you get with AE for free.

Mylenium