Getting my footage and deciding on plug ins

I've been having a few problems with the people I had originally planned to do my shot with, the main problem being that one of them has borken his leg, in the meantime  I've been looking at particle techniques and plug ins including FumeFX and Afterburn by Sitni Sati. one benefit to these applications is that there is a decent trial period without a watermark, so they are easily accesible.

From looking at both plug-ins I have come to the conclusion that Afterburn is perhaps best for my needs, as it specialises in volumetric effects. This style of effect tends to be better for explosions as a whole rather than  a smoke and water simulator such as FumeFX.

Here are a couple of tutorials I have been using to familiarise myself with the software:





Although these don't give me the exact effect I'm looking for they are good practice