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For those who don’t know the tool: Tyson Ibele Productions’ tyFlow is a procedural simulation and VFX plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max, covering particles, rigid bodies, cloth, crowds, fracturing, volumes, terrain and caching. It sits inside Max between asset preparation and final rendering, with connections to PhysX, OpenVDB, PhoenixFD, V-Ray, Deadline and Max’s own viewport and scripting systems;
The developer’s official demonstration describes the system as a way to create physically accurate vehicle motion quickly inside tyFlow. A playable-looking viewport is still a DCC viewport, however enthusiastically it has learned to corner.
Cars enter the flow
tyFlow 2.100 adds new PhysX Vehicle operators, helpers and flow presets for building vehicle rigs and simulations directly inside 3ds Max. That is the headline change because it turns something users could previously assemble from lower-level PhysX relationships into a dedicated workflow.
The release notes currently describe the new vehicle system at the workflow level rather than publishing a complete list of every new operator name and every exposed vehicle parameter. That matters. The presence of the PhysX Vehicle SDK underneath the workflow does not prove that every parameter offered by NVIDIA’s API is exposed as an artist control in tyFlow.
What PhysX is actually solving
tyFlow has used NVIDIA PhysX for rigid-body work for years, and its version history records a move to PhysX SDK 5.6 in the earlier 1.128 build. The 2.100 notes do not announce another PhysX SDK migration. The news here is therefore a vehicle-specific workflow built on tyFlow’s PhysX integration, rather than a newly documented physics engine.
NVIDIA’s PhysX Vehicle system models a vehicle as a rigid body coupled to sprung masses representing suspension lines and wheels. Each wheel queries the road geometry below it, suspension compression generates forces, tire calculations add forces based on factors such as load, friction, wheel rotation and steering, and the combined result drives the vehicle body through the simulation.
The SDK can also model the mechanical path between an engine and driven wheels through clutch, gearing and differential components. Its universal command model includes normalised throttle, braking, handbrake and steering inputs, while transmission behaviour can vary between direct-drive, engine-drive and tank-style configurations.
For VFX and animation work, the important distinction is that this is not simply a procedural wheel-rotation script. PhysX Vehicle calculates interaction between road contact, suspension, tire forces and body dynamics. That makes it relevant wherever wheel motion needs to react to terrain and vehicle dynamics rather than merely match a predefined transform animation.
Less rigging, more driving
The production attraction is fairly clear. Automotive visualisation, commercials, chase shots, destruction setups and previs frequently need a vehicle to respond to uneven ground, acceleration, braking or contact while keeping wheel and chassis behaviour coherent. A dedicated vehicle layer can move that work away from manually coordinating wheel transforms, body pitch and suspension offsets.
tyFlow’s new helpers and presets should also reduce the amount of infrastructure required before a simulation becomes useful. The result remains a simulation, not an animation oracle. A physically driven vehicle can generate motion that would be tedious to construct manually, but production still needs art direction, initial conditions, collision geometry, scene scale and appropriate simulation settings. A stunt car that obeys physics perfectly can still miss its mark with admirable scientific integrity.
The workflow also stays inside the same 3ds Max environment as tyFlow’s other particle, collision and procedural tools. That is potentially useful for shots where the vehicle is only one participant in a larger effect, such as debris, secondary rigid bodies, terrain interaction, or other tyFlow-driven elements. The release does not document a new interchange requirement just to move the simulated vehicle into tyFlow.
CUDA is not a magic adjective
The processing backend deserves some restraint. tyFlow’s current system requirements document multithreaded CPU processing for the core simulation loop, CUDA acceleration for its PhysX Solver on supported NVIDIA hardware, OpenCL acceleration for the Particle Bind Solver and CUDA requirements for the Cloth Collision Solver. The PhysX Solver can fall back to CPU processing when a suitable NVIDIA GPU is unavailable. That is documented for tyFlow’s PhysX solver generally.
For workstation planning, tyFlow recommends at least 32 GB of RAM for general use, 64 GB or more for heavier simulations and 128 GB or more for advanced workloads. So, an arm, a leg, or a kidney respectively, in today’s RAMpokalypse.
Splats get into the flow
The second substantial addition concerns Gaussian splats, but it has a clear host-version boundary. tyFlow 2.100 can import objects exposing the Gaussian splat interface through its Birth Flow operator and tyMesher object, and can export Gaussian splat data from tyFlow and tyCache objects. These additions require 3ds Max 2027 or later according to the tyFlow release notes.
That connects directly with Autodesk’s new 3D Gaussian Splat support. 3ds Max 2027.2 introduced native point-based 3DGS objects, point manipulation tools and Arnold rendering support. Autodesk documents native 3DGS import from PLY, SPZ and LCC files.
The distinction is important: tyFlow’s release notes describe interoperability with Max’s Gaussian splat interface and Gaussian splat data. They do not say that tyFlow itself has become a general-purpose PLY, SPZ or LCC file exporter. Autodesk’s file-format support and tyFlow’s interface-level support are related parts of the same ecosystem, but they are not interchangeable claims.
For procedural work, though, the connection is notable. Max’s Points system makes point and splat data editable alongside conventional scene content, while tyFlow can now consume splat-interface objects through existing flow and meshing contexts. That puts captured or reconstructed point-based assets closer to particle and procedural workflows rather than leaving them as isolated render objects.
Small changes with large farms
Several less glamorous changes target automation and render-farm behaviour. Deadline tyCache export can now acquire a floating licence seat when available even when the job runs in network-render mode, and the licence server is configured to deny ordinary render-node seat requests. That addresses a distinction between simply rendering an existing cache and generating tyCache data, which requires different licensing capabilities.
The tyVolumeObjectExt interface gains raw scalar, vector and LUT array accessors plus helper functions. The Material modifier gains a generateMergedMaterial MAXScript function. tyVAT can export explicit vertex normals when they exist. None of these is a new artist interface on its own, but all can remove small pieces of custom glue in automated pipelines.
Position Raycast can now send particles out based on whether they hit a surface, and its surface orientation can switch between vertex and face normals. Surface Test gains any/all matching when particle meshes are considered. Cloth Bind’s basic initialisation parameters can be controlled using Value operators. These changes extend existing operator logic rather than introducing new simulation systems.
There is also a practical viewport optimisation: with particle statistics visible, editor redraw frequency has been reduced from every frame to every 1.5 seconds. The simulation is not thereby faster in every situation, but leaving the editor open should generate less redraw work under that specific condition.
Deployment remains pleasantly old-fashioned
tyFlow remains a 3ds Max plug-in, not a standalone simulator. Current documentation supports 3ds Max 2020 and later, while the Gaussian splat additions specifically require Max 2027 or later.
Installation still consists primarily of placing the appropriate tyFlow DLO file into the corresponding 3ds Max plug-in path. The plug-in can also be loaded from a shared network directory, which is useful for controlled studio deployment. The current download documentation requires the latest Microsoft Visual C++ x64 Redistributable for both tyFlow and its floating licence server.
Permanent still means permanent
tyFlow PRO licensing remains permanent rather than subscription-based. The current official price is $495 USD for a node-locked PRO licence and $645 USD per seat for a floating PRO licence. Both include one year of maintenance, and the vendor states that applicable taxes or fees are additional.
After maintenance expires, the licence remains valid for applicable tyFlow versions released within its entitlement period. The current renewal prices during the 30-day renewal window are $295 USD for a node-locked licence and $445 USD per floating seat. Maintenance renewal is optional and is not automatically rebilled.
tyFlow FREE can be used commercially. However, there is a documentation discrepancy worth flagging before anyone designs a farm around it. The dedicated FREE documentation lists three limitations: no multithreading, no GPU acceleration and no tyCache export, then states that all other features remain available. The current product homepage separately lists Inferno export as unavailable in FREE. Studios relying on Inferno export without PRO should therefore confirm current behaviour and licence terms directly with the developer before deployment.
For network rendering, tyFlow FREE can render existing tyFlow scene data without a PRO licence, but its performance and GPU limitations remain relevant. The separate tyFlow RENDER build unlocks CPU multithreading for UI-less network rendering without requiring a licence, while tyCache export and GPU-only simulation requirements remain separate considerations.
Studios should test tyFlow 2.100 on representative vehicle rigs, caches, splat assets and target render hardware before deploying it into an active production pipeline.
https://docs.tyflow.com/download/version/
https://docs.tyflow.com/why/
| Product | tyFlow |
| Developer | Tyson Ibele Productions Inc. |
| Version | 2.100 |
| Host compatibility | 3ds Max 2020+; Gaussian splat additions require 3ds Max 2027+ |
| Installation | Per-version DLO plug-in; shared network plug-in loading is supported |
| Processing | Multithreaded core in PRO; documented CUDA PhysX Solver, OpenCL Particle Bind Solver and CUDA Cloth Collision Solver; vehicle-specific acceleration path is not separately stated |
| Licence models | FREE; PRO permanent node-locked; PRO permanent floating; PRO includes one year of maintenance |
| Commercial use | tyFlow FREE and PRO are documented for commercial use |
| Pricing | PRO node-locked: $495 USD. PRO floating: $645 USD per seat. Prices exclude applicable taxes/fees |
| Maintenance renewal | $295 USD node-locked or $445 USD per floating seat during the 30-day renewal window |
| Network rendering | FREE can render tyFlow scene data subject to FREE limitations; tyFlow RENDER unlocks CPU multithreading for UI-less network rendering |
| Documentation | Official documentation |
| Download | Official download |
| Pricing | Official store |
