Creating and Editing Particle Systems
Unfortunately particles seem to be precached before the map runs, so the PCFs are read before the BSP.
Burnout: looks nice! Mind posting it?
By the way, I've managed to recreate the prop_paint_bomb's appearance using particles, and have a partially-working gel splat that (wherever it spawns) covers the nearest surface within 128 units with...little purple bits of errory smoke.
Looks good, except for that tag at the top for the free recorder you're using. You might want to look into using this to record games. It's free, and it's what I used to record the tutorial.
http://www.tophattwaffle.com/ - My site for Source Engine Level Design
http://therewillbescience.com/ - Portal 2, Lab Rat
http://www.moddb.com/mods/portal-2-lab-rat - Portal 2, Lab Rat (MODDB)
mmmmmm delish tut, thanks! I had never touched the particle editor
Here you go ^^ : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/950 ... rticle.zip
Be aware, I have not made any lines in the manifest. If you want, here is the exact line to paste (right after "//Portal 2 particles") :
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"file" "particles/futbol_ray.pcf"
Feel free to modify it and even to redistribute it, just mention me as the original creator.
One last thing you should be aware of too, is that if you want the ray to go up and not on the sides, you should not modify the angles of the "info_particle_system". You will also have to line it up on grid 1, maybe less (by dragging the info_particle_system)
I'll look into making an instance if it's too hard 
I've always been using DxTory before for it's very good performance, but maybe I'll change now. Thanks a lot ! 
Yeah I already know that, Chris But what if we try to replace an already exisiting particle by giving it the same name than a stock one and locating it outside the pak01_dir.vpk inside a /particles local folder with its texture files into the same /materials local folder than the original ones are, AND THEN we pack those local files into the bsp using pakrat? ...I think these custom ones will override the stock ones while we run our map 
useful tools and stuff here on TWP 
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]Yeah I already know that, Chris But what if we try to replace an already exisiting particle by giving it the same name than a stock one and locating it outside the pak01_dir.vpk inside a /particles local folder with its texture files into the same /materials local folder than the original ones are, AND THEN we pack those local files into the bsp using pakrat? ...I think these custom ones will override the stock ones while we run our map
oh good idea, however if you're already paking something, it might as well just be a new particle and manifest
Yeah I already know that, Chris But what if we try to replace an already exisiting particle by giving it the same name than a stock one and locating it outside the pak01_dir.vpk inside a /particles local folder with its texture files into the same /materials local folder than the original ones are, AND THEN we pack those local files into the bsp using pakrat? ...I think these custom ones will override the stock ones while we run our map
oh good idea, however if you're already paking something, it might as well just be a new particle and manifest
But the game loads the manifest before it loads the map. The packed manifest wouldn't be read.
But what if we try to replace an already exisiting particle by giving it the same name than a stock one and locating it outside the pak01_dir.vpk inside a /particles local folder with its texture files into the same /materials local folder than the original ones are, AND THEN we pack those local files into the bsp using pakrat? ...I think these custom ones will override the stock ones while we run our map oh good idea, however if you're already paking something, it might as well just be a new particle and manifest
But the game loads the manifest before it loads the map. The packed manifest wouldn't be read.
ohhh = lame
then go with the renaming
Hmmm... more than renaming I guess it should be directly saved as... the same name than an already exisiting particle... the names and paths are coded into the pcf files
In addition to the video tutorial, this is what I'd do:
1. Extract all Portal2 particles from the .vpk file into Portal 2/portal2/particles folder.
2. Extract all particles materials from the .vpk into Portal 2/portal2/materials/particle folder.
3. Some effects will be required to properly see the particles as well. I can't know right now which of them all, but for starters we could extract from the .vpk all inside /effects and materials/effects into Portal2/portal2/effects and Portal2/portal2/materials/effects respectively.
4. Edit the Alien Swarm 'GameInfo.txt" (/swarm/GameInfo.txt) and add a new "Searchpath" line for our materials and effects folders below the last existing line like so:
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"SearchPaths"
{
"Game" "|gameinfo_path|."
"Game" "swarm_base"
"Game" "platform"
"Game" "C:Program FilesSteamsteamappscommonportal 2portal2materials"
"Game" "C:Program FilesSteamsteamappscommonportal 2portal2effects"}
(Ofc each one should check for his own paths... mine is located under E:Steam for instance...)
5. Now we can edit already existing Portal2 particles and watch their textures properly (I think Alien Swarm textures are v7.5 as well as Portal2 so no hexing needed...). Also we can create new particles effects and store them into an already existing pcf file.
It's yet to be confirmed if we can just add new particles effects into a given pcf file or we should replace any of the existing ones (dunno if there's a sort of index or something that might be controlling this).
I'd like to do a further testing about this and about pakrating a custom particle later today
useful tools and stuff here on TWP [spoiler]
[/spoiler]You can just add them to the file, but aren't the normal PCFs in the VPK?