Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com

Um your teacher doesn't know what he is talking about:) Just kidding. What issues are you having with applying a shader on to them? The colors you see in the preview are colors showing the life and death of the particles, so you can see the timespan of the particles life. The attached image use particles for the smoke/etc. Let us know what problems you are having with shading the particles. By the way if you want to you can download the attached images scene file, just go to the link, and signup its in the downloads section, but you have to signup first. Brian brian@vizualds.com http://www.vizualds.com