Again we are going to add some parameters to our particle system to see the effect they have.
Change
time_to_live
to be a range with a minimum and maximum:time_to_live_min 1 time_to_live_max 10
Do the same for the color:
color_range_start 1 0 0 color_range_end 0 0 1
Adjust your application code; then compile and run it. You should see different colored particles and some will disappear before others.
Instead of using single value parameters, we used parameters that described a range of values and let Ogre 3D pick the exact values. This added diversity to our particle system and can be used to model natural effects more realistically, because, in nature, there is seldom something that doesn't have a slightly different appearance over time and space.