Hey, everybody.  I've been trying to create a "Human Torch" type effect for live action and stop motion films.  I can color correct the keyed subject to look orange, red, and yellow, but I run into trouble when I try to put fire around the subject's body.  I try to use Particle Playground's layer exploder (this is After Effects, BTW) to do this, but it takes FOREVER to render, and makes my computer hot enough to cook a meal on.

When I look at tutorials on how to make fire in particle playground, I see that the person making the tutorial has about 3000-5000 particles on the comp at a time, as opposed to my 300000.

So...my question is how do I lower the amount of particles on screen without a decrease in quality?  If this can't be done, then is there another way to achieve this effect without using keyframing?

Thanks.