This tutorial explains the process to generating Golden particles with the use of Maya's Dynamic particle engine. The tutorial was done using Maya 6.0.

1. Create a default Emitter. Change Emitter ScaleX=12, ScaleY=1, ScaleZ=12, Emitter Type=Volume, Rate=100, DirectionX=0, DirectionY=1, DirectionZ=0; Along Axis=5.

2. Create a default camera and change TranslateY=5, TranslateZ=25 and RotateX=15. ("Image1.jpg").

               Image1.jpg

3. Create a Polygon Cube and set Scale X=0.07, ScaleY=0.07 and ScaleZ=0.

4. Select the "pCube1", and then press the "ctrl" key and select "particles1".  Select Instancer(Replacement).

This will instance "pCube1" to each and every particle. If you play now, you can see each particle carries a "pCube1", which is the instance of the original object. Meaning, whatever changes you make to the original object (pCube1), will affect the object instanced to the particles.

5. Select the particles and in the attribute editor, expand the Instancer (Geometry Replacement) and change options for Rotation to "position".

6.In the viewport current select "Panels\Perspective\camera1". Now play a while and at frame 80, your viewport should resemble "Image2.jpg".

              Image2.jpg

7. Apply a new Blinn shader to the "pCube1" and set the following settings - Color to Black, Eccentricity=1, Specular Roll Off=1, Specular Color=H-45, S-1, V-2, Glow Intensity=0.1.

8.In the render Globals set the "Camera" to "camera1" and quality to "Production Quality" and set your desired "Name", "Range" and "Resolution" for render. Do a test render around frame 150 and your render should resemble "Image3.jpg".

               Image3.jpg

You can now, play around your camera inside the particles as a fly through golden particles.

You can download the completed scene file "Golden Particles.mb".

Alternatively, i had also uploaded the above tutorial to www.creativecrash.com