Might be best if you start with the presets found in the content browser (or downloaded from maxon)
For these types of particles I really like the spline emitter. This way you can animate the spline too and that makes the orgin of the particles very subtle rather than one source. Do you have an animation that you can link to show coser what you are looking for?
For general TP SREK has the best examples I have seen with a good text clarifying what is what.
http://www.bonkers.de/tp/tp.html
If you have time and a little money
http://www.cmivfx.com has like 8 hours of TP tutorial but it seems a little overkill for this project. It deals a lot with swapping groups and interaction.
/randy
