HOOPS IMAGES

GLASS-HOOPS - DESTRUCTION CLOSE-UP

Note that Blender's BLUR render effect works on the chrome ball, but not on the smashing glass. Though this is clearly the case, I HAVE had the BLUR effect work on another particle-based mesh explosion. (See PIANO-EXPLOSION)
(I have since come to realise that the PIANO-EXPLOSION render only blurred due to the carema movement.
Modifiers such as PARTICLES & FLUIDS won't blur this way - though I think it can be achieved through COMPOSITING)

SIDE-VIEW

Shows the chrome projectile smashing through the glass hoops; just emerging from the third hoop, heading for the glass sphere.
The sphere, and each hoop, were assigned 'reactor particle' modifiers (use physics buttons, and choose reactor from the Emitter, Hair, and Reactor menu).
An 'emitter' particle modifier was also assigned to the chrome ball, which the glass objects react to as the ball passes through them.
Strong effects from the 'Ambient Occlusion' render can be seen here, especially on the ground-surface.

SPOT-LIGHTS

There are 6 spot-lights arranged around the metal structure. By being careful with the 'Energy', 'Halo intensity', and 'Distance' settings, I got the effect of the HALO lamps (the visible light-tracers) without too much lamp-light bathing the main scene. Only one lamp (the one in the right of this render, which is an extended part of the right side of the metal structure - see pic. below) is resposible for 80% of the main visibility (hense the strong shadows)

TOP-DOWN VIEW v1

TOP-DOWN VIEW v2

Despite high Ambient Occlusion sampling (about 12, affecting 'BOTH' (Add and Sub)), and multiple lamps, all these renders come in at under 2^1/2 minutes - even on my Laptop.
(Though perhaps the SPOT-LIGHTS pic could do with higher OSA Anti-Aliasing?!?)

BLURRED SUPER-SMASH!

This image takes advantage of Blender's BLUR functionality - a simple setting in the SCENE buttons. (Press F10)
The BLUR effect works by rendering a number of 'inbetween' stages between frames, and then merging them together, capturing the movement between frames of animated objects, or camera movements. After using this effect a few times, I gathered that Blender uses the OSA (Over-SAmpling - or AntiAliasing) setting to set the amount of 'inbetween' frames to render - i.e. A default OSA setting of 8 will render 8 BLUR frames per single frame of the movie, and a maximum OSA of 16 will render 16 'inbetweenies' - taking 16 times longer to render your scene!!
There is also, of course, the BLUR setting, which governs the amount of the blurred outcome that will be present in the final render. Pity it can't save them separately for later 'mixing'.
Another thing to remember when using the BLUR function, is the material you are rendering. Some modifier effects don't (seem to) blur (perhaps I just don't know how to do it?) - including particles, and soft-bodies. In fact, the smashing glass in this render wouldn't blur, so I had to set up a drastic camera movement between the render-frame and the previous frame to get this effect - as camera movements will blur anything.
This 16-OSA render took no less than 6 hours!
(..after a further year of Blender-Render experience, this is actually pretty tame! Some more recent renders have taken multiples of this!)

BLURRED SIDE-SMASH!

This one is another BLUR render - but due to the fact that Blender can't calculate the inbetween stages of the EXPLOSION Modifier of the glass, Only the Ball came out with a blurred effect. So, I had to get a bit creative with Adobe Photoshop to create a bit of movement in the glass.
Unfortunatly the 'camera-movement' trick I used on the previous BLUR-render would not be appropriate here, as the wooden hoops and background would all be blurred as well. Not the effect I was after. What WOULD be cool though, is to render a still-camera verion, AND a moving, blurring camera shot from the same position (by setting the camera's IPO of the PREVIOUS frame to an altered position) - and then using a 2D image editor such as GIMP or PHOTOSHOP to use the still Hoops and background objects from the first render, and the appropriate areas of the glass from the camera-blur render. ...Must try that sometime. :-)