Particles in Carrara are different than particles for video. Carrara' particle system is a bona fide 3D solution. You could probably come up with something to use for an animated map, but with trememndous effort. The video/2D particle solutions are a slam dunk for work like this since it is common practice to add smoke, fire or water after a video take. In the case of Painter, being able to record some of the fluid effects is truely the fastest solution. I'm not talking doing a frame by frame unless you want to. Just use a recordable filter like Fluid or Ink Dropper. No comes the fun part, adding 2D animations to 3D Carrara particals... ;)