Why does enabling 3D on a layer change its position axes?

[Jerathein]

I want to enable 3D on a shape layer that has a mask, so I can use it as the layer emitter for Trapcode Particular. But whenever I turn it on, AE automatically changes that layer's positioning to resemble 3D instead of just keeping it where it's at. Why is that? Is there any way to prevent it from doing so?

[Jerathein]

Picture for reference of what it does when 3D gets turned on:

[Rick Gerard]

Your cropped screenshot does not tell us anything at all about your workflow or the settings on the Particular layer. I'm guessing you added a camera or used the camera tools to move around the default Active Camera. I'm not sure about your workflow in Particular either. It is an extremely complex 3rd party plugin that requires a fair amount of study to use effectively. Don't count on YouTube for training. Go directly to Red Giant:

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

You are in a custom 3D view, which is not particularly useful when working with Particular in the first place. Create a proper camera layer for your 3D scene to make things more consistent and predicatble. You know, spatial awareness, consistent perspective rendering and all that in addition to the fact that custom views won't render, anyway. You may want to brush up on some basics and read the online help.

Mylenium

[Jerathein]

Yep, that was it! Ironically, though, I don't have a camera on the layer panel. I did add one early on to try some DOF, but then removed it shortly after. I'll admit, I completely forgot about that View droplist.