UPDATE: Turns out it was because the default shape for the particle system was a 3D cone / sphere. Changing it to circle fixed it.
Hello,
I’m trying to add a particle to my 2D scene however it’s always appearing behind all my sprites and background art regardless of how I set the ‘order in layer’.
Here’s the setup;
The background is on the default layer at order 0:
The particle is setup in it’s Renderer to be at order 2:
The end result is still the particle behind the background:
Any clues?
Before, the background and particle system shared the exact same Z value (0). If I give the particle system a different Z value then even more odd things start to happen:
bump cause i had same problem and your thread helped me 
Hello, for anyone looking at this in 2021, go to the Renderer tab/section, and change the Order in Layer value to a higher number then your Sprites order. To test it out just make it the largest number possible and you should see it.
Three (3) ways that Unity draws / stacks / sorts / layers / overlays stuff:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/orthographic-camera-rendering-order.1114078/#post-7167037
In short,
The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera.
SpriteRenderers draw according to their Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth properties
UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear transform sequence, like a stack of papers
If you find that you need to mix and match items using these different ways of rendering, and have them appear in ways they are not initially designed for, you need to:
There may be more than one solution to try.
Additional reading in the official docs:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/2DSorting.html
And SortingGroups can also be extremely helpful in certain circumstances:
Thank you Your Update helped me.
