Effects: Show "ghost" buildings?

So I am playing around with server scripting and one of the things I am interested in is to spawn random effects into the world. Spawning premade effects isn't very hard and kinda fun so far.
Now I am wondering how the effect editing works. I can see effects are defined in json and pfx files, but I have very little knowledge of this stuff so far. I am wondering if it is possible to create "ghost" buildings.
I've seen that the commander landing is using an astreus model as a particle, so it seems that it is possible to use random units as particles for effects.
Is it possible to define an effect that is totally static and just shows a particle at a given location in a half transparent manner? I'd like to have a marker "build here" basically. I am thinking to create such an effect once per second in a given location until the player builds the building there.

In general: Has somebody looked at this system a bit more already and has ideas for interesting usecases given the ability to spawn any effects anywhere via a scripting system?

The particle system has an option for using a mesh as the particle. If you can find a way to cause the system to spawn an effect with scripting on the server, then this kind of thing should definitely be possible.

Colin asking a question?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

But as Dom said, there is a mesh option and I believe there is an option to set a papa file as the mesh, but unfortunately this is the one thing in the effects guide that is unfinished not even there.

EDIT: just realized this is a pretty old question

12 days is old?

The effects system is capable of doing this, though if you want a transparent team colored unit particle you'd have to write a new shader as the existing meshParticle_unit is opaque like a normal unit.

Not really any way to spawn effects via server scripting that I know of though.

I am fine with a transparent, non colored ghost.

Ah, good. When I originally added the commander spawn effects it was through C++ code.

You'll need an effects entity Json file for each building type you want to preview and a pfx file with that building's model and diffuse texture.

Thinking about it you might still need a custom shader, or be okay with the buildings looking a little odd since the diffuse textures have that alpha in them.