Various firing systems have the capability of dividing a script into segments that are independently triggered or that correspond to different timecode ranges. For some firing systems like Cobra and StarFire, Finale 3D uses the Track field in the script table to define segments. For others like Fire Pioneer and ShangYi-TECH, Finale 3D uses songs or segment markers explicitly, which are the subject of this article.
Songs as segments
By default, every song file added to your show in Finale 3D represents a segment. If the song files correspond to the time ranges you want to be segments, then you don’t have to do anything at all to define segments because they are defined automatically by the songs, starting with segment number 0 and counting up.
Figure 1 – The individual song files added to your show each represent a segment, by default.
To set the segment numbers manually instead of accepting the default counting order, please open the Songs window and set the segment number in the Segment column on the right, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Optionally set the segment numbers of the songs in Songs window.
Beginnings and ends of song segments
As you would expect, each song’s segment begins at the time the song begins. But what if there are events between or after all the songs? To ensure all events in the show are associated with segments, the end of a song segment extends beyond the end of the song to the beginning of the next song or to the end of the show if there is no next segment. In the example of Figure 1, the events around 2 minutes are still associated with the first song’s segment, and the events around 6:30 are associated with the second song’s segment.
Segment markers
If the song files don’t correspond to the time ranges you want to be segments, or if you have a single song file representing the sound track for the entire show, then you can use segment markers to define the segments. If the show contains segment markers, they take precedence over the songs for defining segments. Segments are defined entirely by songs or entirely by segment markers, not a mixture.
Figure 3 – The “Show > Segments” menu includes functions to add or clear segment markers.
The “Show > Segments” menu includes functions to add and clear segment markers. Segment markers are a type of keyframe. You can see the list of segment markers in the Keyframes window. You can edit, delete or copy/paste segment marker rows in the Keyframes window, shown in Figure 4. As with song segments, if you don’t specify the segment numbers, they count up from 0 by default.
Figure 4 – Segment markers are a type of keyframe, listed in the Keyframes window.
Segment markers appear on the timeline as dotted vertical lines. Using segment markers, you can define the explicit beginning and end of the segment time range. Defining the end of the time range is optional. As with song segments, the time range for events associated with a segment extends beyond the end of the segment to the beginning of the next segment or end of the show.
Figure 5 – The vertical blue dotted line is a segment start marker; the red dotted line is the optional segment end marker.