Custom particle animations?

[CobaltWolf]

I have several things in the pipeline that, while not necessarily dependent on them, would be greatly improved by having custom particle animations. Some examples include a puff of smoke for the ALSEP mortar firing, and a particle getting zapped as it passes through an ion trap instrument. While the latter may be achievable with just a small chunk of transparent geometry and animated emissives/lights, others do not have an obvious workaround. I looked around but didn't see anything  - is there any information on having custom particle effects? I hesitate to look for standard unity tutorials because I don't know what would and wouldn't work in KSP. Would the move to 1.1 change anything?