In Unreal you would use the Cascade Particle system https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/ParticleSystems/index.html You would need to make textures in photoshop but most of the work would be done in unreal.
Some inspiration for you, good luck! [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z687LEgmjG0[/ame] [vv]101571068[/vv] Intro tut http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1880-Introduction-to-Particle-Systems-in-Unreal-Engine
Each kind of effect demands a different approach, some things can be done fully in the game engine, others need quite a bit of work on a 3d package before putting that in an engine. I'd advise you to get Unreal Engine and mess around with the particle editor a lot. There's quite a bit of documentation on it so I'd start…