How to animate particle simulation?

Technical Support Particles and Physics Simulations
1

So I made this animation,

And the model is going to be an asset in my blender library. I’m currently having trouble figuring out how to change/animate when the particle system at the beginning of the animation turns on and off. At the current moment, the way I do it just by changing the start and end frames, but as far as I’m aware, that only works in the assets original file, and once I import it into a different file via the asset library, I can’t change that. I wanted to use custom properties as drivers in the particle tab, but evidently, that also doesn’t work. If anyone knows of a reasonable work around, that’d be great.

Also, sorry, this question is really poorly worded.

2

I reckon just append / make single user the particle system each time. Its only a particle system, it can’t add more than a kilobyte to the .blend right?

3

I didn’t even think to do that. Thanks.

4

If you play the video slowly, you can see a lot.

Use Particle System / Emitter / Lifetime well.

Use the Noise Texture Node for the laser