Help with particle explosions

Hey there, I am posting this here because it seems as though it may be the best place to put it (We really need an "Effects" thread). Anyway, what I am looking for are ways to make good looking special effects in gamestudio, explosions in particular. Until now I have been using PEB (Particle Effect Builder) which is a great little tool, but is lacking in some major features. So here I am now wondering if theres any way to make good looking/advanced particle effects. For example...

http://vimeo.com/14439277

Take a look at that video, these are the kind of effects I am trying to achieve and I seem to get close but the level of polish just seems improbable with the options which are available. So does anyone have some 3DGS reelevant tips on making better looking explosions and effects?

On a side note, To the creator of PEB I want to say thank you for your great contribution. I was wondering if you would be interested in releasing the source code to make this tool open source to further improve this handy bit of software?

Just code it by hand, has always worked best for me. Simply analyze a few effects you like and decompose them in their sub-effects. Then, write a function, e.g. do_explosion(VECTOR* pos), that starts certain particle and sprite effects over the timespan of 0.5 seconds or so.

I think you could do most of it like superku said, using particles and sprites, although, if you had the shader knowledge you could alway try and modify over the particles and sprites with a post processing shader, and there the sky is whatever your skill limits you to.