Finale 3D Feature Requests
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AuthorPosts
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Pyro_180130000Joined: Jan 2023 Posts: 2 Location: Changsha, Hunan, China 
NewcomerPyro TracyJoined: May 2019 Posts: 1 Location: Belle Plaine, Minnesota, United States NewcomerI love the additional drawing capabilities recently added to the racks window! The following are three suggestions/requests:
1) The ability to define custom line/fill/text colors for items using a hex code (e.g. matching the colors defined for racks to create a legend or other setup note)
2) The ability to align and distribute multiple drawing items
3) To be able to select all (drawing items and racks) and have everything move together (e.g. the final layout with drawing items needs to be centered on the page)
The added Racks dimensions and other attributes is also very helpful! When choosing colors for the racks the individual mortars are a lighter shade of the same color but it’s sometimes difficult to see the pin number depending on the color for a particular rail/pin. Maybe define rack color and mortar (circle) color? Of course it would also be nice to define the color rotation for rail/pin.
Sky Fire ForgeJoined: Sep 2019 Posts: 13 Location: West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States NewcomerHi, not sure this is the right place to put this but here goes….. Is there a keyboard short cut that allows you to quickly add a second effect over top the first? This would keep the positions, timing, and angles of the original effect and just add the second effect. Similar to pressing “Y” but instead, it would keep the original effect. If not could this be added?
Thanks,
Tim
DrewFinaleJoined: Dec 2019 Posts: 555 Location: United States 
SilverHi, not sure this is the right place to put this but here goes….. Is there a keyboard short cut that allows you to quickly add a second effect over top the first? This would keep the positions, timing, and angles of the original effect and just add the second effect. Similar to pressing “Y” but instead, it would keep the original effect. If not could this be added?
Thanks,
Tim
Hi Tim, how about Ctrl+C (Copy) > Ctrl+V (Paste) > Y (Replace).
Sky Fire ForgeJoined: Sep 2019 Posts: 13 Location: West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States NewcomerHi Tim, how about Ctrl+C (Copy) > Ctrl+V (Paste) > Y (Replace).
Hi Drew, yeah, that works, but I was hoping for a single key press, like “A” for add.
Tim
Højen & MagicJoined: Aug 2019 Posts: 3 Location: Holstebro, Central Jutland, Denmark NewcomerI have an idea for a new feature.
Retrigger for cakes.
I have several times had the perfect cake for a show I’m working on, but where the duration is too long.We therefore use to light the cake on the spare fuse at a given time, so that it suits with the timing.
But then we also address the spare-fuse-cue that cue manually, and that can be a bit of a hassle.
We have also used an empty product, but then we have problems with the “Order of Assignment” (How the addresses are sorted) when we address the show, and we cannot make a duplicate product because then we have to manually correct in our stock management.
My idea is, if you can right-click on a selected cake in your script, and add a “retrigger/spare fuse” function, where you have the option of choosing a time from 0 (ignition), when the spare fuse is lit, or a “new” duration, where F3D itself calculates when the ignition must take place, so that the duration fits.
If the 3d animation also counters that the cake also starts from the end, it will be enormously cool.
Then F3D must make an extra cue, which always comes right after the cake’s cue, regardless of sorting preferences when addressing.PS. It could also be cool with the possibility of igniting a cake backwards in the first place.
PPS.. The same goes for cakeslices. All of ours have the option of fan and C-shape, but we only have one product, and therefore, we write it in a note on the product in script when we design. It works just fine, but a bit of a shame when the customer asks for the 3d animation.
Best Regards,
Benjamin Neis
Pyro_322060000Joined: Feb 2024 Posts: 1 Location: China Newcomer
Moises Luis ExpositoJoined: Nov 2019 Posts: 21 Location: United States 
CharcoalPyro_323180000Joined: Mar 2024 Posts: 3 Location: Shanghai, Shanghai, China Newcomerhello，can i ask a question?I created the effect of this flower in a project. How can I copy the effect of this flower in other projects?I found that after making this effect into a macro, I can re-insert it into the same project with the same firing point, but when it is inserted into other projects, because there is no same firing point, I cannot use the effect macro.
Pyro_323180000Joined: Mar 2024 Posts: 3 Location: Shanghai, Shanghai, China NewcomerPFX-TKJoined: Mar 2019 Posts: 5 Location: Salisbury, England, United Kingdom NewcomerDrewFinaleJoined: Dec 2019 Posts: 555 Location: United States Silver– An option to view overall rack layout from all positions in one windows instead of going through each position.
– Export script to ShowDirector .scx file for older ShowDirector software.
Thanks for the feedback. Can you tell us why you need to export to Show Director?
Pyro_282150000Joined: Sep 2023 Posts: 1 Location: United States Newcomer
Skylit PyrotechnicsJoined: Apr 2019 Posts: 1 Location: Norwich, England, United Kingdom NewcomerHello Drew, Wiill and finale team,
Firstly thanks for a fantastic presentation on all the new features at the PTC last month. The new 3D google mapping is awesome! – such a great addition to be able to offer a customer. My feature suggestion is regarding the site layout maps and speciffically the safety circles, great that we can manually adjust the circle size but it would be really good if the safety circles reflected the wind speed setting. That way we could make fallout predictions based on different wind strengths. There is a piece of software develped in the UK called “shellcalc” but it would be very useful to have this as part of finale.
I look ofrward to your comments
Thanks
Dan Grimmond
The Novice PyroJoined: Jun 2023 Posts: 9 Location: Oxford, Michigan, United States Newcomer
NECJoined: Apr 2019 Posts: 45 Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States NewcomerNot that it’s difficult to convert inches to mm, but having the option in the Physical Specifications for racks to change to imperial measurements would be nice as well as a rack weight field (useful for verifying total equipment load on a trailer/barge/floating dock)
Sky Fire ForgeJoined: Sep 2019 Posts: 13 Location: West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States NewcomerHi All, now that the PyroJam competition is over (congrats to the winners, looking forward to being there in person), I wanted to share some of my thought on using Finale 3D, now that I finally got them down on paper. This was really my first time seriously using Finale and first and foremost, I found it a great piece of software to use. It is very user friendly and intuitive. However, being the good engineer, I have a few fixes and improvements I’d like to see. Please take these with a grain of salt since I am a true novice and may not have found some of these in the software. Also, these comments are limited to scripting as I didn’t do anything with addressing, site layout, or rack design and are based on version 2024.02.23-18f9290b1.
Fixes:
– In the script window, when setting a filter for cue count, it only shows the first 999 cues. It should go all the way to the end of the show.
– In the script window “Part Number” is available to be used as a filter. However, it is not available in the effect window. This would be very handy to have in the effect window as well.
– In the “Render Settings”, all the settings seem to save between session of using Finale, except “Particle Limit”. Please consider having “Particle Limit” save between sessions.
– Similar to other Windows applications, pressing Ctrl the dragging an item or items will copy them in the timeline or in the render window. However, unlike other windows applications, you cannot drag the item(s) then press Ctrl to copy. Please fix so that order of operation doesn’t matter.
Improvements:
– Sometimes, I found I was accidentally opening a window (example, the fan window) and wanted to get out of it right away using the keyboard. I found myself hitting ESC to close the window, but that doesn’t work. I would suggest having ESC assigned as the cancel button.
– Being used to the Windows standard redo of Crtl-Y, it took a while to get used to Ctrl-Shift-Z for redo, I would suggest adding Crtl-Y as redo.
– It would be nice to have the ability to adjust playback speed in the simulation and not just when generating a video to help fine tune timing.
– A few times I just wanted to see what a single cue looked like. An isolated window that showed just a preview of the selected cue might be helpful.
– Several times I created an effect on one side of the layout but wanted to quickly mirror it to the other side using the same timing and effects, just the opposite angles. A mirror function would be really handy instead of manually having to set the other side up.
Really Cool Idea:
– Any thoughts about integrating VR headsets (like Oculus) into Finale 3D? I think that would be totally amazing to watch a simulation in a fully immersive 3D environment!!!
Thanks for listening,
Tim
NECJoined: Apr 2019 Posts: 45 Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States NewcomerCobra 6M module would be a nice addition for those of use that do use them. I currently workaround by using a custom module definition with 6 cues, address the bits that need that module type, lock addresses then go back and change custom module type to something different for other needs.
Curtis BJoined: Jan 2023 Posts: 47 Location: Ozark, Missouri, United States NewcomerOne of the BIGGEST hurdles when creating VDLs is the Description window… here’s a list of things that need fixed for that specific box “description”:
1) The box should wrap the text to a new line so you don’t have to search the box for an effect or part of the “code”
2) You should be able to resize the description box to accommodate effects that take a lot of “code” to create
3) Ctrl + Shift + “arrow key” should be adapted to the common usage that applications like Word has where when going left or right it highlights the next word instead of JUST the space next to it.
4) If there is a lot of text in the box, Ctrl + “arrow key” doesn’t show your position in the box while trying to scroll through the “code” (having a better UI for the description box would help this a LOT)
There’s probably a LOT of UI changes to VDL that could be made, but having to utilize an external application to help write the VDL shouldn’t need to be used.
Thanks,
Curtis
BarehmJoined: May 2023 Posts: 45 Location: Madison, Wisconsin, United States NewcomerCan we get an enhancement to suppress the “Success!” window that pops up after every effect edited? I don’t recall ever seeing an error, but even if there is something that could wrong, I’d suggest the UI should only show when this exception state happens. Otherwise, it’s just another dialog box I’m regularly dismissing and not reading.
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