thinkingParticles offers a frame based file caching method that will write out a separate file for each frame of the animation. In contrast to the single cache file approach, a multi-file approach may offer some benefits. By writing out individual files per frame, the memory used per file is relatively small, compared to the one big master cache file. However, the total amount of memory needed to write the cache is higher as each individual file has to carry more information about the full frame.

Frame based file caches offer one big advantage over a single cache file approach when used in network environments with multiple machines. The over all peak network traffic is much smaller when using multiple smaller files instead of one big file.

There are two possible ways to create a full particle system cache file in thinkingParticles. It can either be through the main MasterDynamic rollout dialog or by right clicking on the MasterDynamic Tree-view Icon in the DynamicSet Tree view window.

When you left-click on the MasterDynamic name within the DynamicSet Tree View, you will be presented with two special rollouts on the right-hand side of the main thinkingParticles User Interface.

The first rollout menu option is used to handle the particle file caching.

First, an output file name and path has to be specified. This is done by clicking on the Select Record File button in the rollout menu. Doing so will bring up a standard Windows 'Save As' dialog. The dialog lets you choose two file formats; *.tpc or *.tps. To create a frame based caching; *.tpc needs to be selected.

The full particle system single file caching option uses the *.tps file extension. To learn more about this method click HERE.  

MasterDynamic particle cache files can also be created directly from within the DynamicSet Tree-View window. To do this; right click onto the MasterDynamic Icon (not the text or name). To learn more about right click menu options in this dialog click HERE

Make sure to right click on the Icon and not on the text MasterDynamic itself. Right clicking on the text will deactivate the DynamicSet and this will actually turn off all of thinkingParticles in 3ds Max. When the text was clicked, instead of the icon, the text turns gray to indicate it is deactivated.

The following context sensitive menu will open up.

A full explanation of this dialog can be found HERE