Particle Flow Toolsª: Box 1 is a set of Particle Flow operators designed to extend Particle FlowÕs 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 DiscreetÕs 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.