Particles dont give off the desired effect

Technical Support Particles and Physics Simulations
1

I am trying to make some project hail mary fanart but with a kerbal from kerbal space program replacing ryan gosling. Specifically, im remaking the scene where he collects the astrophage and ive made a few of the scenes but im really struggling with replicating the red astrophage particles.
this is what im trying to replicate with the camera panning out:

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image860×484 639 KB

this is how far ive gotten:

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image1158×655 583 KB

I managed to make a good particle system for the wide shot with the ship but the same effect doesnt seem to apply nicely in this case so i changed it to a more bokeh look

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image1669×934 1.06 MB

any advice regarding this would be greatly appreciated. You’re welcome to ask any questions that would help. Thank you!

2

Hi, this might explaine why particles wouldn’t do it:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BzBmvX6Yn_0

3

This is really interesting! i used a similar system to make the close up shots of the helmet but i feel like they used cgi for the wide shots which i would like to replicate :))