I took the big leap and bought the new Eye Candy 5, it works wonderfully with DIP10! So I am guessing it will work great with other version that can use plugins. This lesson is made using the Eye Candy 5 plugin, I can't remember if EyeCandy4000 had this fliter or not so I don't know if you can do it or not. But I LOVE doing these, so thought I would share, with anyone who cares to take a peek!
I call these Rain Globes, because...well...it looks like it is raining in them...haha!

Here is the one I made during this lesson...

Soooo here we go! I choose a graphic

To cut it out, use the shaped/circle selection tool

I want to click CTRL+d 3 times so I have 4 layers of the same graphic in my stack

The bottom layer you want to EFFECTS/FILL with black

The 3rd layer you want to fill with a color that matches the background of your graphic, I used blue

The top I filled with white/black gradient

Then I go to EFFECTS/TRANSPARECY/GRADUAL, choose the circle

My top globe looks like this in my stack

I click on the blue/3rd layer and apply EFFECTS/EDGES/SOFT

Then I click the bottom/black layer and also add EFFECTS/EDGES/SOFT

Then I make sure there is NOTHING selected in my stack and go to EFFECTS/PAINTBRUSH/FREEHAND and apply white paint

If you made sure that nothing was seleted in your stack before applying, then your paint should be on it's own layer. Now click ALT+SHIFT+g and apply the blur tool

And my globe looks like this once I add a base

By the way, my base is a ding with eyecandy's chrome filter applyed.
Now for the rain effect! I click on the 2nd layer/graphic.

I then go to EFFECTS/PLUGINS

Adjust the settings to my liking

Now I SAVE AS my first frame f1.png. I then click UNDO

And go back into the plugin. The only thing I change is the RANDOM SEED button

Each time you click RANDOM SEED, it change the filter a little, but enough to make it look like it is moving. You will notice the number changes

I made 4 frames for this, repeating each time the UNDO and RANDOM SEED and SAVE AS steps. Once I have them all saved. I open all my frames. Then go to TOOLS/FLIPBOOK. Click through the first couple options, until I come to the size, I adjust the size either to the top number or custom and put in a number.

And then the next option is the speed

TADA! Save your animated rain globe!
Here are some others I did