i am creating a very simple particle system. My only issue is trying to create a blurry trail effect on the particles in motion. I started by creating a large bitmap container, and applying a colormatrix filter and a blur filter . It seems to do the trick , but the issue now, is i have to make this container cover the stage, which has a two unwanted a effects:
-it's slower
-it covers all the content beneath. Perhaps my approach to creating trails is wrong?

i can post the whole class, but before i litter this post with long lines of code, is there a way to place a bitmapdata drawing over content and still get the desired effect. NOTE, if make transparency false in the bmdata, i loose the effect