Particle Flow Tools Box 1 (3DS Max Plugin)
Supports 3DS Max version 6.x through 2009

Particle Flow Tools™: Box 1 is a set of Particle Flow operators designed to extend Particle Flow’s inherent capabilities. Written by the same developer who created Particle Flow, this set of tools is a testament to the openness of Particle Flow. Some of the PFT operators are significantly improved extensions of the features built originally into other 3rd party plug-ins, while others are completely new and add amazing functionality to Autodesk Media & Entertainment’s internal event-based particle system. Box 1 comes with 14 powerful operators that fall mainly into three different categories: Painting, Groups, and Utilities.

The new Painting tools (which includes Particle Paint, Birth Paint, Placement Paint, Birth Texture and Mapping Object operators) give you the ability to paint particles onto any areas of your geometry and then have them emitted from those selected areas. You can even have particles emit by using animated color data from your emitters.

Next are the Utilities operators. Not only are they useful, but they can help keep your scripts compact and easy to manage. They include the Preset Flow, Lock/Bond, Initial State and Utility operators, and with them you can quickly build your own preset flows outside of the standard setup to accommodate your own workflow, and then use another operator to remove operators that are not being used within the system to better compact your flows. You can take a snapshot of your particles at any point, and have new cloned particles emit from those locations.

The Grouping operators (which includes the Group Selection, Group Operator and Split Group operators) lets you efficiently select and manage different collections of particles within your flows, or use the new Split Group test to divide your flow based on other selections within the system.

Finally, exclusive to Box 1 is the Shape Plus operator that gives you new 2D and 3D shapes you can have Particle Flow create.

The uses for these new operators are endless.

Painting

Have you ever wanted to put a leash on your Particle Flow particles and show them exactly where to go? Now the new Painting tools in Particle Flow Tools gives you the power to precisely control your particles placement and movement. The Painting tools let you easily accomplish effects such as fire spreading throughout a room, jumping from location to location. You can restrict the flames only to flammable objects, keeping them away from the rest.

The Painting tools are:

Particle Paint
Lets you sow particle seeds directly on object surfaces, using a freehand painting tool or standard 3ds max splines. Then use the additional Paint operators to place particles in the seeds' locations, either at birth or later during the particle animation. This versatile tool gives you five different rollouts of controls, including the ability to restrict painting to specific objects or faces, position particles on or above the painted surface, orient the particles, set stroke timing, and much more. Particle Paint remembers the timing you use to paint the strokes, and lets you apply it to the particle animation.

Birth Paint
Generates new particles along strokes according to their timing. This makes it easy, for example, to create skywriting-type effects, not to mention custom fireworks that couldn't exist in the real world.

Placement Paint
Lets you position and orient particles according to the Particle Paint data, on either an instantaneous or ongoing basis. Options include the ability to synchronize the particle order with the paint timing, and gradually change particle orientation from the current orientation to that of the paint data.

Birth Texture
Lets you create new particles based on the parameters of an animated texture on the emitter objects. Controls include timing, quantity, positioning of particles on vertices/faces/edges, emitter objects, scaling, sub-material options, and mapping channels. There's even a Latency control for ultra-smooth particle emission. An example of Birth Texture usage is generating spray from the tips of ocean waves, where they're colored white.

Mapping Object
Lets you derive particle mapping from a reference object or objects on an instantaneous or ongoing basis. You can also transition from the original particle mapping to that of the reference object(s) over time or distance.

Groups

The Groups tools in Particle Flow Tools give you new ways to organize and control your particle system. The standard Particle Flow plug-in lets you identify, track, and manipulate only two subsets of particles throughout the system: selected or unselected. So, if you wanted to work with three or more different groups, you were out of luck ... until now, that is! With Groups, you can set up as many different subsets as you like, manipulate them with operators from a different event, and even operate on a group remotely from a completely different event, and determine whether to send articles to the next event based on group membership and selection status.

The tools are:

Group Selection
Define and identify a unique subset of particles for further manipulation with the Group operator and Split Group test. Group Selection gives you a number of ways to specify whether or not the group is selected, including location (inside or outside a bounding volume), particle property such as ID or age, a random percentage, and even Boolean operations between two groups!

Group Operator
This powerful operator lets you apply any event's tests and operators to any group created with Group Selection, no matter where in the particle flow they currently reside. This lets you modify a subset of particles without the need to split the particles off to another event.

Split Group
This test lets you identify a group to split off and decide to send it to the next event based on whether or not it's selected.

Utilities

The Particle Flow Tools utilities let you harness the power of Particle Flow in a variety of ways:

Lock/Bond
A powerful test that attaches particles to an object in a rigid or flexible manner, with control of the particles' position and orientation. Lock/Bond also gives you dampening options and lets a strong force break the attachment and send particles to the next event. This lets you, for instance, spray particles onto a moving (e.g., wavy) surface and make them stick, or shake drops of water off an object.

Initial State
Lets you freeze a particle system at any point in the animation and then use that snapshot as the starting point for another particle system. If you ever need to begin a particle simulation with a complex arrangement that would be difficult to create manually, Initial State lets you do it easily and quickly.

Particle Flow Utility
This 3ds max utility gives you four functions:
Clean up hidden factors that can slow down the particle simulation; reset the Particle View display so you can see the particle flow; synchronizes the particle system elements with the 3ds max layering system; and Preset Manager lets you save and manage different particle systems as presets, available for instant loading with the Preset Flow operator.

Preset Flow
Gives you instant access, within Particle View, to any particle system you've saved as a preset with Preset Manager.

Utility Operator
Provides access within Particle View to some of the Particle Flow utilities, including Clean Up and Synchronize Layers.