Particles flicker when first spawned

New to Niagara and I can’t figure out the correct way to use Color, Scale Sprite Size, and other update modules without a disruptive flicker when the particle is first spawned. I’m almost certain it’s the spawn frame appearing before the update frame is called, but I don’t know why it would do that.

My curves start with 0,0 then fade in to 1 before fading out. The keyframes aren’t misplaced and with the exception of that initial flash, they follow correctly. The particles use flipbooks which likewise aren’t the issue. I can’t make the initial particle settings black/zero because they wouldn’t work with multipliers after that.

particleFlicker_01

What is the super simple thing I’m missing here? It’s making it impossible for me to finish what should have been the easiest of effects and I’ve been fishing for answers on this for an embarrassingly long time.

Edit: Found it. “Interpolation Spawning” needed to be enabled on the emitter’s settings. Its tooltip makes it sound optional and a performance hit, whereas in reality it seems absolutely necessary for any particle that fades in or scales up. Wish I knew why it’s off by default.

Thank you so much for posting solution with “Interpolated spawning”! Just spent damned hour trying to resolve this exact issue and randomly googled your post here! God bless you!