All weather particle shaders

Hullo again.

I don't know if it's normal but particles using any of the built-in particle shaders are unaffected by fog and ambient light. So for example, an explosion on a hill side a kilometer away is as clear as an explosion a few meters away. Also, during a night scene, dust and white smoke particles stick out almost as if they were glowing.

I get around this by using transparent diffuse shaders but doing so prevents the particle system from smoothly changing their transparency.

So, any way to get particles be affected by ambient light whilst being editable by the shuriken system?