I am using multiple particle systems to simulate a huge fire. Using just one particle system doesn't look as nice, however different systems randomly jump in front of each other, causing a popping or flickering effect. I was wondering if there was anyway to prevent this.
so i recently solved a problem similar to this for myself
heres what you can do
make a particle emitter with the desired look that you want
heres the tedious part
animate that sucker
what i did for my fire was, i wanted it to have 5 different stages of intensity (depending on fuel i put into it)
so i made an animation of each stage, changing its emission velocity scale size rotation etc
and so depending on the stage i wanted it at
i would set it to play the animation at the stage it was assigned to (looping, though it doesnt matter since it will continue to emit tell you kill it or tell it to stop)
but doing that you can practically achieve freaking any desired effect with a particle emitter
even better you dont have to assign multiple pesky emitters to an object (that can be really annoying and problematic)