tyFlow is an unofficial replacement for 3ds Max’s Particle Flow.
It is not merely an upgrade to Particle Flow — rather, it was created from scratch with a design philosophy focused on squeezing as much speed and power out of modern multi-core systems as possible. Its layout, UI and workflow are very similar to Particle Flow’s, so that anyone with past experience using Particle Flow will have no trouble making the switch.
Here are some key differences that separate tyFlow from Particle Flow:
tyFlow’s core features are all multithreaded
tyFlow has automatic realtime timeline caching
tyFlow’s particle collision engine is fast and robust
tyFlow uses the latest PhysX SDK for rigidbody simulations
tyFlow has a fast and OpenCL-accelerated constraint solver for simulating grains/cloth/rope/etc
tyFlow has built-in tools to convert particle trajectories, neighbors and constraints into dynamic splines
tyFlow objects are self-contained and no hidden objects are created or managed in the scene
tyFlow has many built-in fracturing tools for dynamic mesh destruction
tyFlow supports simulation cascading for fast particle initialization and hierarchical caching
tyFlow supports simulation retiming
tyFlow has built-in crowd simulation tools
tyFlow has dynamic mesh breaking and fracturing operators
tyFlow has fast, multithreaded C# scripting support for complete particle control
tyFlow has built-in PRT/object/cache export
tyFlow is integrated with PhoenixFD and supports grid-particle influence/advection
tyFlow is integrated with Nitrous and supports viewport instancing
tyFlow is integrated with VRay and supports render instancing
tyFlow is integrated with Deadline for batching exports onto a renderfarm
tyFlow has many other unique features not found in Particle Flow
If you’re frustrated with Particle Flow’s lack of development updates, persistent bugs, unoptimized code and missing features, then tyFlow is perfect for you.