This is probably another really dumb question which is simpler than I’d think but here goes. Is there a way to get a particle count for entire scene (pflow, and all particle systems)? Would show up at render time as in screen text showing particle count for that frame.
The renderer has no concept of particle count ( except for dedicated particle renderers like Frantic Films’ Krakatoa which deals only with particles and ignores the meshes). All particle systems replace the particles with meshes before sending data to the renderer. Thus, if you want the number of particles on a frame, you would have to iterate through all particle systems and collect their numbers. Also note that the render count and the viewport count in PFlow systems can be different, so it might be a good idea to take that into account, too.
i don´t know if this is what you are looking for but in the particle flow window, in the main menu in options then “track update” there is an option call “particle count”, this option shows the total amount of particles in a source and shows the particle count for each event as well, hope it helps.