Particles

We're learning about particles in programming! I'm super excited about this because it means that my UFOs and Aliens in my racing level  may have super bad ass sci-fi effects. So, my level could really benefit by a lot of particle systems, unfortunately I probably won't have time to make every single one I would like to, but I'll detail here all of the ones I potentially COULD make.

For my UFOs in particular there are two particle systems I would like to create. One, would be the kind of "antigravity beam" but perhaps a little more exciting. This kind of effect would be perfect to implement in the part of my level where flying UFOs hover over the canyons and break off rocks that rain down on the player.

My second idea for particles that could apply to my UFOs is the effect of a destructive laser beam hitting the road and or an effect on the UFO where the laser fires from. 

Here's a really cool laser show video that could apply to both these effect ideas:

More Laser Effects!

There's a specific pattern that the lasers make in this video that is really interesting that might be a fun aspect to layer into the anti-gravity beam.

Here is a clip from Howard the Duck. 

And here's an example from League of Legends. Troy Adams The senior FX artist at Riot did a presentation for GAD students of the particle systems he made for the champion Vel'Koz. The second attack option where the ground splits would be interesting to adapt  to the UFO's laser hitting the track.

Tutorials for that:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AnimTrails.html

Some tutorials I found to help me along in creating my first particle systems: