Color particles by custom values

[insertmesh]

Right now there's no way to change the regular particle display (ticks, dots, etc) with color values, but you can definitely set color values on the particle geometry with whatever data you'd like. You can do this with a Mapping operator (in Continuous timing mode), set to assign mapping values from custom data channels (either float or vector). Then you can assign whatever data to those channels that you want (using a script or Custom Properties operator) and use either a Vertex Color diffuse map or something else like a Gradient Map to interpolate between the assigned values on your particle geometry.

The reason I don't have a way to change the colors of the particle display (ticks, dots, etc) is that those are purely GPU objects and I don't want users to be confused as to why colors assigned to particles don't reflect their renders (because those particle colorings wouldn't be able to directly translate to geometry color without using the method described above).

I'll try to include some examples of how to do the color mentioned above in the example files at some point...it's very simple.

thanks man, I already got the general idea from the UVW gradient example filem forgot to update the post here.

But speaking of particle colors...
Thats actually something that has been bothering me...Apparently, as soon as you assign a material, you can´t see diferent events colored differently anymore, like in Pflow.
That was actually quite handy for a number of reasons:
1. You can see where your particles are in the flow to check for problems.
2. You can have different wirecolors in the render element for different parts of the flow.

Any chance this could be brought back?