Particles can be associated with animations. Using the Character Editor, you can time Particles precisely within an animation.
Setting Up Particles in an Animation
Select the particular animation you would like to attach Particles to by opening a .cdf file within the Character Editor (see The Character Editor tutorial for more information).
Go to the Animation Control tab.
The play button cycles the animation allowing you to choose the moment you would like a particular Particle event to play.
Move the slider to that time position. For fine tuning press the Shift and/or Ctrl keys while sliding.
Click New Event to create an event at this animation point.
Open the Particles tab in the Database View window, open the desired library, and select the desired effect.
In the Character Editor, click Use Selected Effect.
Play the animation to see the Particles.
Timing can then be adjusted by clicking on the event in the list box and adjusting the slider. The time field will update automatically. You can also type in a value in the time field if you wish.
Precise positions on the Particles can be achieved by attaching the Particles to a particular bone in the object. Click in the Bone column in the event list box to bring up a dialog window for selecting the bone.
Click Save. This creates an .animevent file which is stored with the .cdf file.
Additional Notes
There are some addition notes to keep in mind while using this system.
The animation event for particle effects should always be called "effect". If you rename the event it won't work!
When a specific effect is already playing on a skeleton you cannot trigger it again. To be more precise: It will not play if it's already playing. This is a feature of the effects-on-skeleton system. With the console command ca_DebugSkeletonEffects 1 you can get feedback about this in the console.
Also, be careful with the animation slider, it will always change the time of the current event, so if you accidentally have an event selected it will change its time...