Firing Table Filter
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Bruce AJoined: Mar 2019 Posts: 9 Location: Mountain View, Hawaii, United States 
NewcomerHas Finale implemented a method to filter specific cues for export to a firing table? If I have a display utilizing multiple controllers, I can create a single script and subsequently apply a filter to download the relevant cues to each controller individually, or am I still stuck with creating separate show files and deleting unwanted cues?
WillJoined: Feb 2018 Posts: 59 Location: Palo Alto NewcomerYou can divide a show up for multiple controllers of the same firing system type by using the “Universe” field of the Position Properties. Each controller will get a separate script file when you export. Instructions are in the last paragraph of,
I see that none of the documentation article titles would have led you to this answer, which is somewhat buried. Any suggestion for a documentation article title that you would have noticed?
Will
Bruce AJoined: Mar 2019 Posts: 9 Location: Mountain View, Hawaii, United States NewcomerWill,
The Universe feature will work well for the scenario I provided–multiple controllers in the same show. However, I can think of other scenarios where I would want to use different controllers for cues located in the same area, or position, of the firing site. I personally think it would be useful to be able to define the lines of code sent to a Firing Table file by using Script filters–whatever is displayed in the Script window is what gets sent to the Firing Table file. I’d be curious to hear if other users agree.
Bruce
Bruce AJoined: Mar 2019 Posts: 9 Location: Mountain View, Hawaii, United States NewcomerWill,
Regarding your question about documentation, and finding relevant information: I just tried using the search dialog box on Finale3d.com for the phrase “multiple firing systems” and that section comes up as the very first result. However, if I modify the wording at all, the topic becomes buried under a bunch of other options. I don’t know if there is an easy answer to what is a long standing problem: as an application becomes more complex, finding relevant results in an expansive documentation file becomes ever more challenging. Especially since humans tend to approach, organize and search for answers in different ways. What works for me may not be effective for others. Effective natural language keyword search tends to provide the fastest results IMO.
WillJoined: Feb 2018 Posts: 59 Location: Palo Alto Newcomer
Simon SvenssonJoined: Dec 2018 Posts: 16 Location: Göteborg NewcomerHi Bruce,
My general tip for finding things in the f3d documentation is to ctrl+f(or cmd+f) when looking at the table of content. If you search for “multi” in the table of content menu, you get 5 hits and it is rather obvious which one is the one you were looking for.
The documentation is very comprehensive, and there are few “hidden” features. I think that the documentation is often updated before the release of a new Beta. It is extremely useful to learn how Will et al writes documentation because F3D is very well documented to be a nisch tool.
Regarding the use case of multiple universes on the same physical and virtual position. How do you do that in reality. Sounds like a painful and risky setup. When I have used multiple universes we have wanted to keep them physically separated to not mix them by mistake.
Bruce AJoined: Mar 2019 Posts: 9 Location: Mountain View, Hawaii, United States NewcomerSimon,
Here’s one scenario: I have two different groups of devices on a production. For Device Group A, I want to Auto Fire the devices on time code using controller #1. For Device Group B, I have a number of items that I want to manually trigger based upon some event using controller #2. Both Device Groups are going to use the same brand of controller, one set to manual, the other auto. I would like to be able to design, place and address all the effects using a single script and then filter the events into 2 separate firing table files for download into their respective controller. 2 “universes”, one position.
I could just use separate position(s) for each group, but then I’m stuck with the layout/addressing/diagramming being handled separately. Would be simpler IMO to designate a column on the script table, use it to filter the addresses I want and download.
DrewFinaleJoined: Dec 2019 Posts: 557 Location: United States 
SilverBruce, you can already do exactly what you are describing using the Universe column in the Script window. Granted, Position Properties doesn’t directly support multiple Universes and the addressing algorithm won’t do it automatically, but you can still do it! After addressing, just set your Universe values per script row and then export. I just did a quick test by making a show with 1 position and 32 items. After addressing, I set 16 items to Universe 1 and 16 items to Universe 2, then I exported and the result was 2 scripts.
Simon SvenssonJoined: Dec 2018 Posts: 16 Location: Göteborg NewcomerPersonally I would use “virtual positions” in this scenario and also make sure the addresses are not overlapping.
Addresses automatically do not overlap in the procedure explained by Drew since it is done after addressing. But to not waste modules and get gaps of unused outputs within a module you also have to tell F3D to split the products between different modules. You could for example use custom script field for that purpose and limit modules to a single custom script field.
Edit:
I realized I might have misunderstood the scenario.
in this scenario do you use the same modules etc for both controllers and just move the cable in between? Then my post above is redundant.
You use the word firing table, do you use PD? If so and second scenario, I would use caliber group manual firing instead.
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