Hi Pyro_7100000,   You’re correct that you can only create fountains that are gold or silver through VDL currently. However, I think the 6s fountain you’re seeing is actually a 3s fountain even though the timeline indicator shows the overall effect being closer to 6 seconds in duration. The reason is because the timeline indicator is also showing the fade out/wind down part of the effect, when sparks are still visible and falling but are no longer being emitted by the fountain.   If you look closely, you’ll notice that the sparks stop at 3 seconds. The rest of the timeline indicator is just there so you know that the effect isn’t truly “finished” yet, despite no more particles being emitted.  

I was building a consumer cake from Sunwing that had some falling leaves effects I can’t replicate well.  The first one appears to be two shots that do white falling leaves with a strobing effect. The other is a falling leaves pattern that explodes into intense crackling.  I can’t seem to get the falling leaves effects to work with a ‘to’ directive that would work. Does anyone have advice?   -Brett  

I’m trying to create a fountain using: 40mm 15.0m 3.00s Blue Fountain   But what it creates is a 6 second silver fountain. I’m guessing at the moment fountains can only be silver or gold? but why doesn’t the time match?

And, yes, I know I could use various filters and set hazard info in the script window but that leaves the possibility open to forget to re-re-re-check everything is set if the script undergoes lots of edits.

Is there a way to set an entire position and/or rack cluster to a hazard group ?   example 1: a position dedicated to salutes, everything that got put in that position would be part of a hazard definition / disable group automatically   example 2: a specific rack cluster with effects that could “touch down” that may need to be excluded based on site conditions/wind

Looking in the Positions window, it appears there can only be one Custom_Module in the entire display, is this accurate?  Shouldn’t you be able to do custom modules for each firing system or at the very least, for each universe?    Isn’t the point of the addressing blueprints to be able to set address settings for each position and therefore setting virtual slats for an address blueprint should be included there.   I hope this feature is built in and I’m missing something with virtual slats.  There should be a virtual slats window that lets you define slats for each type of firing system, right?  

I’m using two universes, one is a cobra, one is using the custom CSV feature.  Both systems are addressing but I’m running into a bug or something. I have a row of 18M’s that will run Dragons Breath fuel mines and ground salutes using a 6s slat for each position.  My middle row is in my own universe called FanFire, with a Firing system in position properties called Csv and a Module or Slat Type “Custom Module”, this works fine. For the 18M’s,  when I pick Firing System: Cobra, Module or Slat Type: Custom Module it changes the Firing System back to CSV.  I need to be able to select Cobra for the firing system with a custom module so it creates the virtual slats (cues 1-6, 7-12, 13-18) for each section.  The Firing positions that use a single 18M have the same section listed. Can there be only one “Custom Module” in the entire show, if so, doesn’t this defeat the whole point of the Universe system?  When I go to Custom Module and choose the Firing System and adjust the Rail address template, why does it apply to all custom modules.   You should be able to define custom modules for each firing system.   The help documents talk about virtual slats, is there some field I’m not seeing somewhere to define virtual slats for the Cobra system while still having another universe that uses CSV and its own custom modules?   Derrick  

Thank you for this clarification.

Hey Curtis B, I’m having trouble reproducing the fan + pan issue. Below is a video showing my steps. If you’re still encountering the problem, reply with a Loom video (loom.com) to help me understand the reproduction path.  

Strobing Willow is one of the newest VDL terms/effects. It’s a dramatic improvement from not having strobing Willow, but there’s no question it needs some more love. Gold Tip Strobing Willow is a case where you won’t get a good result – it doesn’t produce a trail containing gold tipped micro stars. Another current limitation is that adding a tip to a strobing willow star requires the effect editor. The good news is these are easy tweaks to make in the effect editor and I’m also confident we’ll be able to further improve the VDL capabilities at some point.