Ah yes I see what you mean. That is because "edge distance" is not a clamp in tySelect, but a literal distance of traversal, from edge to edge, until a cutoff point based on the distance setting you choose. I think that's more desirable behavior than what EditPoly/EditMesh edge distance setting does. Can you think of a usage case where just clamping a normal soft selection with a depth-first edge count would be ideal? Also you can adjust the soft-selection graph to achieve basically the same behavior either way.
The reason tyFlow's edge distance selection is diagonal in your image, is due to the orientation of hidden edges on the mesh. If you set all edges on your mesh to be visible, you'll see that the hidden edges are oriented in the same direction that your selection is biased towards....which is correct behavior given the edge distance algorithm I'm using.
You'll see the same behavior in EditPoly/EditMesh if you enable visibility of hidden edges....perhaps you're getting your diamond shape because those modifiers do not traverse hidden edges....which is, an interesting option I may add into the tySelect soft selection rollout.
As for soft selections on faces, they are not supported by tySelect (and technically within max "soft face selections" are just vert selections anyways, because max meshes have no internal structures to store different selection weightings for vertices directly in faces).
The reason tyFlow's edge distance selection is diagonal in your image, is due to the orientation of hidden edges on the mesh. If you set all edges on your mesh to be visible, you'll see that the hidden edges are oriented in the same direction that your selection is biased towards....which is correct behavior given the edge distance algorithm I'm using.
You'll see the same behavior in EditPoly/EditMesh if you enable visibility of hidden edges....perhaps you're getting your diamond shape because those modifiers do not traverse hidden edges....which is, an interesting option I may add into the tySelect soft selection rollout.
As for soft selections on faces, they are not supported by tySelect (and technically within max "soft face selections" are just vert selections anyways, because max meshes have no internal structures to store different selection weightings for vertices directly in faces).