The MAGICFX Flamaniac unit is a flame projector with 5 angled nozzles that can fire directional flame bursts under programmable control by any of the DMX-capable firing systems, such as Piroshow, Pyromac, PyroSure, FireTek, Cobra, and Mongoose.
Figure 1 – MAGICFX Flamaniac
The Flamaniac system has two configuration modes, Mode 1, in which the five different angles are controlled by five DMX channels, and Mode 2, in which the five angles are controlled by a single DMX channel with different values corresponding to different angles, or off. The Finale 3D Standard Fixture IDs for Mode 1 and Mode 2 Flamaniacs are 003 and 004, respectively (see Supported flame and spark fixtures (and Standard Fixture IDs)). Finale 3D includes pre-defined Flamaniac effects for the five fixed angles in various durations in the Generic Effects collection for both Mode 1 and Mode 2. You can copy and modify these effects or make your own with other durations or simulations. Finale 3D also includes rotatable Flamaniac effects in various durations.
To script a show for the Flamaniac system, you can use the effects with built in angles and leave them at those angles, or you can use the rotatable effects and optionally rotate them to the angles supported by the Flamaniac unit or thereabouts (-45, -22, 0, 22, 45). After inserting effects, you export the show as a firing script for one of the DMX-capable firing systems. The export function in Finale 3D takes into consideration the angles of the chosen effects in the show, the rotated angles for the rotatable effects, and the durations of the effects, and compiles the proper sequence of DMX events in the exported script.
For further information about the MAGICFX Flamaniac units, see the MAGICFX website (www.magicfx.eu) and the manual_flamaniac_eng-2017.
DMX channels
The Flamaniac firing channels and safety channel can be configured to independent Start Addresses on the fixture hardware, so you need to put the safety channel effects off in their own “safety position” in Finale 3D to set their DMX Channel Base independently of the DMX Channel Base of the Flamaniac 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 firing channels for flame position, Mode 1 (DMX Fixture Type of “MagicFX [003] Mode 1 Flamaniac”)
| DMX Channel | Meaning | Effect in Finale 3D that controls channel |
| Channel 1 (DMX Channel Base + 0) | Ignition left 45 degrees (0 = OFF, 255 = ON) | Part numbers MAFX9701 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. |
| Channel 2 (DMX Channel Base + 1) | Ignition left 22.5 degrees (0 = OFF, 255 = ON) | Part numbers MAFX9702 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. |
| Channel 3 (DMX Channel Base + 2) | Ignition up degrees (0 = OFF, 255 = ON) | Part numbers MAFX9703 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. |
| Channel 4 (DMX Channel Base + 3) | Ignition right 22.5 degrees (0 = OFF, 255 = ON) | Part numbers MAFX9704 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. |
| Channel 5 (DMX Channel Base + 4) | Ignition right 45 degrees (0 = OFF, 255 = ON) | Part numbers MAFX9705 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. |
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Table 2 – DMX firing channels for flame position, Mode 2 (DMX Fixture Type of “MagicFX [004] Mode 2 Flamaniac”)
| DMX Channel | Meaning | Effect in Finale 3D that controls channel |
| Channel 1 (DMX Channel Base + 0) | Ignition at angle (0 = OFF: see Table 4 for values corresponding to ignitions ) | Part numbers MAFX9711 and others, representing flame effects of varying heights and angles with durations from 0.1s to 1s; the height differences are reflected in the visual simulation but not in the DMX channel values since Flamaniac units do not have dynamically controllable heights. Part numbers beginning with MAFX9761 are rotatable by dragging the trajectory dots in the Finale 3D user interface. |
Table 3 – DMX channels for safety position (DMX Fixture Type of “MagicFX [017] Safety Channel”)
| DMX Channel | Meaning | Effect in Finale 3D that controls channel |
| Channel 1 (DMX Channel Base + 0) | Safety channel (0-101 = OFF, 102-163 = ON, 164-255 = OFF) | Part number MAFX9799, “MAGFX [017/0000] Safety Channel” |
Table 4 – Flamaniac Mode 2 DMX values and corresponding percentages and angles
| DMX value 0-255 | Percentage 0-100 | Angle |
| 0-25 | 0-10 | (Off) |
| 26-64 | 10-25 | 45 degrees left |
| 65-115 | 25-45 | 22 degrees left |
| 116-166 | 45-65 | Up |
| 167-217 | 65-85 | 22 degrees right |
| 218-255 | 85-100 | 45 degrees right |
Instructions for designing in Finale 3D
To design a show for MAGICFX Flamaniac units, please follow these steps:
- Set up. (A) Follow the flame set up instructions in the Flame systems basic instructions and Exporting a firing system script for flame systems to create the Flamaniac fixture positions and one or more safety positions. Your fixture positions will have a DMX Fixture Type of “MagicFX [003] Mode 1 Flamaniac” or “MagicFX [004] Mode 2 Flamaniac”; your safety positions will have a DMX Fixture Type of “MagicFX [017] Safety Channel”. (B) After deciding what DMX channel range you want each flame unit to use (Mode 1 or Mode 2), configure each physical unit’s “Fire Channel Address” in the real world to be the first channel in the DMX channel range. (C) In Finale 3D, configure the Flamaniac fixture position’s “DMX Channel Base” to match the Fire Channel Address (older versions of Finale 3D required subtracting 1 on the DMX Channel Base, but that is no longer correct). (D) In the real world, please configure each physical Flamaniac unit’s “Safety Channel Address” to be the safety channel number for the universe. In Finale 3D, configure the “DMX Channel Base” of the safety positions to match the Safety Channel Address. (E) In the real world, configure the physical Flamaniac units to be in Mode 1 or Mode 2, matching whatever types of effects you insert from Finale 3D.
- 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. All told for Mode 1 and Mode 2 together there are about 50, beginning with part number GFX9701. These pre-defined effects include the five angles in several durations for both Mode 1 and Mode 2 options. Toward the end of the list, beginning with part number GFX9761, are three rotatable effects.
- Design the show. After inserting effects in the show, you can select groups of any of them and do functions like “Script > Sequences > Make into sequence…” to make interesting timing patterns. With the pre-defined effects with built in angles (GFX9701 to GFX9756) you should not use the scripting functions that change the angles of the effects or rotate the dotted line representations of the effects in the 3D view, since those exported angles are built into the effect definitions. With the rotatable effects (MAFX9761 to MAFX9772), you can rotate the dotted line representations of the effects interactively in the 3D view. Since the Flamaniac unit only supports certain angles, Finale 3D will round the rotated angle to the nearest supported angle. So, for example, rotating an effect to 25 degrees is just fine, and will be rounded to trigger the 22 degree angle shot in the DMX script for the Flamaniac.
- Add safety channel effects. Following the instructions Exporting a firing system script for flame systems add “DMX Safety Channel” effects to your safety channel positions, and adjust their durations to cover the spans of time for which you want to arm the flame unit.
Choosing the DMX channel ranges for fixtures
Each Flamaniac fixture requires firing channels and a safety channel, but the safety channel can be shared among fixtures, so you could allocate your channels for Mode 2, for example, as shown in Table 5. 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 5 – Example channel ranges for Mode 2 Flamaniac fixtures in a DMX universe
| Fixture | DMX Channel Base | Channels Used |
| Safety | 1 | 1 |
| 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 3 | 4 | 4 |
| 4 | 5 | 5 |
| 5 | 6 | 6 |
| 6 | 7 | 7 |
| 7 | 8 | 8 |
| 8 | 9 | 9 |
| 9 | 10 | 10 |
| … | ||
| 511 | 512 | 512 |
GFX9762.
Table 6 – Example files
| Download link | Explanation |
| magicfx_firetek_standard.fin | FireTek pyro + Flamaniac example show |
| magicfx_firetek_standard.csv | FireTek pyro + Flamaniac example exported script |
| magicfx_piroshow_standard.fin | Piroshow pyro + Flamaniac example show |
| magicfx_piroshow_standard.txt | Piroshow pyro + Flamaniac example exported script |
| magicfx_pyromac_standard.fin | Pyromac pyro + Flamaniac example show |
| magicfx_pyromac_standard.txt | Pyromac pyro + Flamaniac example exported script |
| magicfx_pyrosure_standard.fin | PyroSure pyro + Flamaniac example show |
| magicfx_pyrosure_standard.wyh | PyroSure pyro + Flamaniac example exported script |
| magicfx_cobra_standard.fin | Cobra pyro + Flamaniac example show |
| magicfx_cobra_standard.csv | Cobra pyro + Flamaniac example exported script |
| magicfx_piroshow_rotatable_flames.fin | Rotatable flames example show |
| magicfx_piroshow_rotatable_flames.txt | Rotatable flames example exported script |
| manual_flamaniac_eng-2017 | Hardware documentation |