CS4 special use of pixel poly

Question

CS4
I'm tying to invent a scene where an explosion happens along with the actions of pixel-poly giving the impression that an object (in this case a name) has exploded.  So far no problems... plenty of help on google etc.
But now I want to get the same effect but instead of Pixel-polys` particles raining down around... I'd like to have other things rain down.
flowers, feathers etc etc without having to set keyframes for a million tiny objects.
When I first got the notion it was a bit less of a job....I had my friend pixel-poly/explosion  announcing a `hat party' for a customer and her friends.  So along with the pixel explosion I arranged  three tiny colorful hats to emerge out of the explosion twisting and fluttering and growing to normal  size as they fluttered to the ground. I did it with keyframes and it was a something of apain even for just three objects.  Not to mention it looked pretty hokey as I am just a rank beginners.
However my client had a forgiving nature and it was well received.
So I'd like to grow on that skit and have the bits from the explosion actually be something recognizable like flowers, but to have Pixel-poly or something similar still in control of how the `particles' (flowers, hats .. whatever) rain out and down, rather than yours truly having to set thousands of keyframes..  As if I even  could on that kind of scale.  Rather than even try, I'd sooner make the sort of settings one does with Pixel-Poly
I put a small bit of a skit up for anyone who wants to see Poly in action so as to know what I'm talking about here.
It's just Poly and an explosion no addtions, and a few other graphics from pictures That I just left there rahter than break out the tools and cut the thing down.(its still very short) but you can see how Poly does and maybe see what I mean about some way or other making some kind of familiar objects instead of particles.
I'm not sure Miss Poly can be bent to the task but maybe there are  other effects alreaty available that do what I described.
Or maybe someone has an idea how to control a mass of small objects in some way besides key framing.
http://www.jtan.com/~reader/t2/
(  it seems to load slowly although only a *.f4v at 2.7mb, but I think  its a bandwidth problem... the server is not near a back bone)

Answer 1

As Rick and Mathias already mentioned, you need to expand your arsenal and look at particle systems and shape repeaters - both the ones that come with AE and ones that you can buy. Particular may be a bit pricey, but it's worth every penny. if you still don't want to spend money, learning to create layer maps for Card Dance (and in teh same vein for good ol' Particle Playground) is a place to start. additionalyl, look at Foam and CC particle World and their ability to reference otehr layers as sprite textures for custom particle shapes...
Mylenium