Thinking offf the top of my head.
You could use the cloud particles with a ramp to control the colour over the lifetime, emmiting the particles from a surface (maybe hidden from the render so you have more control) then as they fall off they change colour, you could then couple the rate of emmision to the colour values of a shader via a set driven key, so say when its a really bright red theres a high rate of emmision giving more vapour/smoke/fire (or whatever it is lol! that comes off spacecraft) and as the hull "cools" less particles are emmitted, you could also link the lifetime colour ramp to the shader so the colour of the stuff coming off changes too with the intensity of the hulls heat.
Think it would work pretty well, in theory, but then again you might loose some control over the look??
ohh edit - You could make the particles collide with either the hull or the actual object emmitting them, and possibly add a few mulit streek's in there too to have some sparks?????
Cheers
Steve
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle
Last edited by gster123; 02-07-2007 at 12:27 AM.