particle collision static mesh

particles experiment 4

physxfluid particle emitter

particles - fresnel effect

particles

TEXTURE MAPS, NORMAL MAPS AND MORE

www.filterforge.com
is a website with loads of texture maps including normal maps, bump maps, diffuse maps, etc.

www.gimp.org/
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Think free photoshop.

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/normalmap/
Is a plugin to GIMP to create normal maps from your images.

http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps1.shtml
is a tutorial and explanation on what a normal map is and how to use them.