Hi guys. Just a note… I struggled with this situation, too.
https://playground.babylonjs.com/#PU4WYI#107
I wanted the yellow box to remain easily-visible thru the particle spray, even after 10 minutes (consistent emit rate) but… there’s stuff I didn’t understand. Deltakosh tried to pull my head out of my butt… during a conversation that started here.
It’s seemingly complicated… for me. I am killing-off MANY particles via .maxLifetime, so in my thinking, the particleSystem cannot ever “saturate” (reach max particles). I am aging the particles to death… faster than the climb to saturation.
But that’s not the way it works. Read that reasonably-short conversation between Deltakosh and I, and maybe it will hold some answers. (no promises) After that discussion with Deltakosh about emitRate… I realized I don’t yet understand it, and have assumed that I did.
Most times, I just “blow off” max particleSystem capacity… setting it to any big number and moving-on with my bad coding. But… there is stuff to ponder… about max capacity and particle ages/recycling.