Shading attributes set the form and appearance of nParticle objects, including the object’s Particle Render Type, Color, and Opacity. nParticles are created with a default Particle Render Type, which is assigned to the nParticle object according to the nParticle style selected when the object was created. nParticle render types specify the form of the particles, as well as the method used to render the nParticle object.
Opacity, Color, and Incandescence attributes can be mapped on a per-particle basis using the nParticle object’s internal shading ramps. These ramps allow you to map per-particle shading attributes to nParticle properties such as Age, Particle ID, and Radius.
If you are using multi-render passes to render your nParticle objects, be aware that some combinations of render passes may not fully support nParticle objects. See Multi-render passes in the Rendering guide.