I really really doubt that you can get more control in after effects with a 3D effect than you can in Maya with its partricles and expressions, which is what I'm using. Could you do little things like make the particles at the center spinn faster thant the outside? yup it would be a simple matter of duplicating the effect changing the velocity speed also abit of playing around with the turbulance and air resistance options but hey there is more than one way to skin a cat