The "local" time of particle instances, in seconds. This is used to control shape animation and sprite sequences on individual instances. This attribute is required only when you want different time offsets on different instances.
If this attribute is defined, then the instances are implemented through assemblies when rendering with mental ray. This can cause various issues:
Rendering may be slow.
Lights in assemblies are ignored.
Assemblies are not called when generating lightmaps.
Setting the StrandDeform attribute to true does not cause instance shapes to be deformed along the strand.
For some ways to deal with these issues, see Rendering Particle Instances [ICE Particle Simulations].
ShapeInstanceTime does not get incremented automatically. You can increment it manually, or by using one of the control instance compounds.
This attribute is used in the Set Instance Geometry, Set Particle Instance Animation Time, Control Instance Animation, and Control Displacement Instance Animation compounds.
