So, I'm tired of being jealous of x9s particle system and got to thinking about ways to achieve similar effects in x10.
First of all, you can modify the soft decal image file found in the gamecore folder. That's a given but not a very clean approach and it leaves you with one particle effect for your game.
However, I've been trying something with interesting results. Here's what you do:
1) Create a texture with a black alpha and grab a low poly mesh
2) Make a dynamic entity that references the mesh and texture but include decal0=[whatever decal you want]
3) Write a script something like below (or use movefore etc.) and assign your entity to it:
:state=0:rundecal=0
:state=0:floatrate=1,moveup=1,pivotrandom=5
4) Set that entity to spawn a whole bunch of times
And check it out!! Animated particle effects moving around in 3D space!
Looks kinda awesome if you tweak it and use the right kind of decal. You can create an AMAZING smoke stack with this technique.
If y'all are interested, I can make some examples.
Edit...Here is a first past at an example:
http://vimeo.com/27347692
And here is a better example
http://vimeo.com/27361251