There is an inconvenience, that you can't play an animation with a particle system in the Editor. A particle system just won't work when you preview an animation. Often, it is crucial when you develop a visual effect which uses both an animation and a particle system.
I tried to find a solution and I wrote this helper.
Clone the source code and see the full example.
- you should enable the particle system in your animation
- you shold select the particle systems in the Hierarchy when you are playing the animation (otherwise editor won't render the particle systems)
- set the correct duration for the particle system
- this helper works only in edit mode
I consider that the Unity Editor should allow playing particle systems in animation out of the box.
So, the developers of Unity: pay attention to this helper!
Other guys - feel free to copy and modify this script.