The Galaxis G-Flame unit is a vertical flame projector that can be controlled by the Galaxis ignition system, or by any of the DMX-capable firing systems, such as Piroshow, Pyromac, PyroSure, fireTEK, Cobra, and Mongoose.

Figure 1 – Galaxis G-Flame

If the flame unit is controlled by the Galaxis ignition system, the “GS2” script file contains flame triggers in the same format as the pyro ignition triggers, and intermixed with the pyro ignition triggers.  In the GS2 file representation (details here), each trigger row represents the flame unit as a module number, and the triggered flame effect as the pin number.  The pin number just starts at one and counts up, incrementing for each shot.  The GS2 file contains a duration field that get passed to the controller, so effects can have arbitrary durations.  The half dozen or so example G-Flame effects in the Generic Effects provide some reasonable options, but you are free to create your own G-Flame effects with whatever durations you want, following the instructions below.

If the flame unit is controlled by DMX, the DMX signal turns on and off the flame units by writing an “on” value or “off” value to the DMX channel allocated to the G-Flame unit.  Additionally, the DMX script contains a safety channel that can be shared across G-Flame units in the same DMX universe.  The purpose of the safety channel is to reduce the chance of a spurious ignition or held-over ignition by requiring that both the flame unit is “on” and also the safety channel is “on” in order for the flame to operate.  When you design a show in Finale 3D for G-Flame units, you add safety channel “effects” to the show and adjust their durations to cover the periods for which you want the G-Flame units to be armed.

For further information about the G-Flame units, see the Galaxis website (www.firing-system.com) and the User Manual.

Instructions for G-Flame shows using the Galaxis firing system

To design a G-Flame show for the Galaxis firing system, please follow these steps:

1. Set up.  (A) Follow the flame set up instructions in the Flame systems basic instructions and Non-DMX firing systems and flame fixtures.  (B) Make sure your flame positions are configured with GALAXIS G-Flame as the “Module Type”.  (C) Set the “Start Module” of each flame position to a distinct module number that will not conflict with the module numbers used by any pyro positions. When controlled by the Galaxis ignition system, each G-Flame unit operates as an independent module, with its own module number; its “pins” represent the flame shots, counting up incrementally.
2. Add flame effects to the show.  In the effects window, select the Generic Effects collection, and type “G-Flame” in the search box.  That will filter the window to show only the G-Flame effects, of which there are about a half dozen, beginning with part number GFX9800.  Click on the effect icons to insert them into the show.  When you add an effect, you will get an error that you are adding a DMX effect to a pyro position. When designing G-Flame shows controlled by the Galaxis system, please ignore this error simply by clicking the “Continue” button. If you don’t want to see the error again, select the “Do not show again” checkbox in the error dialog. Alternatively, you can modify the flame effects, so they are no longer considered DMX effects, as described in step 3.  After adding effects, you can select groups of any of the G-Flame effects and do functions like “Sequence” to make interesting timing patterns, just like scripting for pyro.
3. Make your own or modify existing flame effects.  The G-Flame effects come in a few example durations in the Generic Effects collection, but you can also create your own variations that have arbitrary durations.  (A) First add the original effect to your My Effects collection by right clicking on the effect row in Generic Effects and selecting “Add to My Effects”.  (C) After adding the effect to your My Effects collection, you can modify its parameters.  Simply edit the duration field to change its duration. The 3D simulation and exported GS2 file will automatically incorporate your change.  You can also adjust the height field to change the height of the flame simulation, though doing so has no bearing on the exported GS2 script. Optionally, to prevent the error that refers to adding a DMX effect to a pyro position, use the blue gear in the Effects window to unhide the “DMX Patch” column and delete any value you see. The DMX patch is not necessary when controlling G-Flames using the Galaxis system. Later, if you want to control G-Flames using DMX, go back to Generic Effects and use the default G-Flame effects that include the DMX patch values.

Instructions for G-Flame shows controlled by DMX

To design G-Flame show controlled by DMX, please follow these steps:

1.  Set up.  (A) Follow the flame set up instructions in the Flame systems basic instructions to create the G-Flame fixture positions and one or more safety positions.  Your fixture positions will have a DMX Fixture Type of “Galaxis [002] G-Flame”; your safety positions will have a DMX Fixture Type of “Galaxis [016] Safety Channel”.  Depending on your DMX controller, you may choose to give each G-Flame unit its own DMX universe, or give each G-Flame unit a channel in a shared DMX universe (the G-Flame units require only a single channel).   (B) In the real world configure each physical G-Flame unit’s “Start Address” to be the DMX channel you allocate for the flame unit.  (C) In Finale 3D configure the “DMX Channel Base” to match the Start Address exactly (older versions of Finale 3D required subtracting 1 on the DMX Channel Base, but that is no longer correct). (D) In the real world, configure each physical G-Flame unit’s “Safety Channel Address” to be the DMX channel you allocate for the shared safety channel.  (E)  In Finale 3D configure the “DMX Channel Base” of the safety position to be the Safety Channel Address.  The safety position is separate from the G-Flame fixture positions and may be shared by the G-Flame fixtures positions if you configure the fixtures with the same Safety Channel Address.
2. Add flame effects to the show.  (A) Right-click on DMX Fixture positions to add compatible effects from the context menu or to filter the effects window to compatible effects.
3. Make your own, or modify existing flame effects.  The G-Flame effects come in a few example durations in the Generic Effects collection, but you can also create your own variations that have arbitrary durations.  (A) First copy the original effect by selecting the effect row in Generic Effects, then right-click copy (or control-C).  (B) Then paste into your My Effects or any of your other effects collections.  (C) After copying it to your own inventory, you can modify its parameters.  Simply edit the duration field to change its duration.  The 3D simulation and the DMX Patch will automatically incorporate your change.  You can also adjust the height field to change the height of the flame simulation, though doing so has no bearing on the exported DMX script.
4. Add safety channel effects.  Following the instructions Flame systems basic instructions add “DMX Safety Channel” effects to your safety channel position, and adjust their durations to cover the spans of time for which you want to arm the flame unit.

Since the G-Flame ignition channel and safety channel are configured to independent Start Addresses, you need to put the safety channel effects off in their own “safety position” in Finale 3D in order set a DMX Channel Base for the safety channel effects independently of the G-Flame fixtures themselves.  The “safety position” doesn’t actually represent a position in the real world; it is just a place to put the safety channel effects at an independent DMX Channel Base.

Table 1 – DMX channels for flame position (DMX Fixture Type of “Galaxis [002] G-Flame”)

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Table 2 – DMX channels for safety position (DMX Fixture Type of “Galaxis [016] Safety Channel”)

Choosing the DMX channel ranges for fixtures

Each G-Flame fixture requires a firing channel and a safety channel, but the safety channel can be shared among fixtures, so you could allocate your channels as shown in Table 3.  A DMX universe has channels 1-512.  If you want to pack as many fixtures into the 512 channels of a DMX universe as you can, back-to-back ranges are the most efficient.  Some DMX firing systems only support 50 or 100 channels, so you may not have all 512 channels to work with.

Table 3 – Example channel ranges for G-Flame fixtures in a DMX universe

G-Flame example

The example files in Table 3 include G-Flame show files configured for the Galaxis ignition system, and for DMX using the fireTEK ignition system (see fireTEK). Exported GS2 and CSV files for the two firing systems, respectively, are also available for download in the table. The example show includes both G-Flame and pyro, to illustrate shows that combine both types of effects, and in the case of the fireTEK example combine DMX and and pyro ignitions. The setup between the Galaxis and DMX shows are notably different, as follows from the instructions at the top of this page. In the Galaxis ignition system show, each G-Flame unit is its own module; no safety channels are required; and no DMX settings like DMX Base Channel are required in the positions. In the DMX example, the G-Flame units are configured for different channels in the same, shared DMX universe. All G-Flame units in the DMX example are served by the same fireTEK module. The show has a single safety channel position, with a safety channel address of 1 (i.e., the DMX Base Channel for the position is 1; and the channel offset in the safety channel effect’s DMX Patch is 0). If you open the example files and look at the positions window (“Window > Position window” menu item), you can see the configurations of all the positions in one place.

Table 4 – Example files