Programming - Particles

We need to make two unique particles related to our racing game for our programming class. I am going to make steam and an energy beam aura. I studied some of UDK's smoke particles and I am going to use some of their concepts as a base for my steam particle. Steam is pretty simple. All I need is a good cloud and distortion map to make it look nice. I want something almost exactly like this, but with a little more distortion:

The energy aura will be a little more complex. It will look like the areas around the energy/ laser beams in these pictures:

It will be an aura so I want to make the particle light and wispy.  I think I will be able to change some parameters and reuse this particle around the big spotlights in my level to add some atmosphere.

There are a few 3D Motive tutorials I have watched a bit of that use some elements I would like to incorporate into the energy aura.

The small little bits floating around in this video are what I'm interested in:

In this video I'm interest in the vortex in the upper right corner. I think that particle, slowed wayyyy down is in the ballpark of what I'm looking for.