Phil (Fire In the Sky Pyrotechnics) wrote: …Trying to get chains to rack to the same rack during addressing.   Check out Preventing chains from splitting across racks.

Hello again Drew.  I have worked out the issues with most of my racking.  Rather than CUT out a bunch of what I might thing is irrelevant, I just created a test bed to try things out in.  I think the racks are being generated correctly now, but I am working through things with the test bed.  Trying to get chains to rack to the same rack during addressing.

  PyroBunny wrote: Can someone create a subforum where we can easily share/design effects? Ideally threads would be titled something like ‘Winda P5581 Fish Tank’ or ‘Pyroland PYL2001 Mother of dragons’ and people could discuss and share what they have created.   I have been asking for this for 2 years now. I know there are some who are selling their designs, so I am wondering if this is part of the inaction on the ability to do this. My renderings are never perfect, but I have literally hundreds of designs that are really close and work well for scripting. I am willing to share in return for sharing others I haven’t made yet. Amanda.S.Walkerllp@gmail.com

I don’t mean to resurrect an old thread, but one other thing I’ve learned from printing labels over the years (and encountered myself this year again):   If you have a manual paper tray option, use it instead of just putting your labels into the normal paper tray. With such small tolerances, label stock can quickly lose alignment when it’s picked up and rotated  by printer rollers. On my commercial laser printer, I lose my label text off the side until I pop down my manual feed tray – then everything works well!    

I can’t seem to figure out why when I create a custom report that it smashes up some of my columns so I can’t read what’s in them. I understand that the description one can’t fit all my text in but address, size and angles I can barely read. I’ve tried adjusting the column size in the script window and then resaving my custom report but that doesn’t seem to do anything. Am I missing something?

Can someone create a subforum where we can easily share/design effects? Ideally threads would be titled something like ‘Winda P5581 Fish Tank’ or ‘Pyroland PYL2001 Mother of dragons’ and people could discuss and share what they have created.

Hi Pyro_67840000, the first step is determining the DMX configuration for the flame machine. The configuration should include the number of channels, the function of each channel, and the appropriate channel values. Do you have a manual or website that provides the DMX channel configuration for your machine?

Hi, I have problem with this flamer. How to design this flame? I control the flames with a cobra. I tried set shoween 2ch flamer with safety channel, but flamer do not work. Thank you very much.

Hi Phil, it’s great to hear you were able to sort out the first issue with Pan angles. For the second issue, if your physical rack is normally straight-up, and the entire rack can be angled, then selecting a fixed-angle structure is correct. With fixed-angle racks, Finale 3D will denote the angle above the rack on the diagram. For racks with fully adjustable tube angles, the angle isn’t shown because the assumption is that the rack is sitting flat on the ground and the tubes within the rack are being angled. If you can’t get effects to rack with a fixed angle rack structure, something isn’t quite working right. With fixed angle racks, the ‘Add racks for show’ feature should automatically add racks to each position at the angles that match your design. If it’s not working that way, send over a simplified version of your show that reproduces the issue and I’ll take a look. For example, if the issue can be reproduced with a single position, a single rack, and a single angled effect, then that’s the ideal show file to send over. We call this a Minimal Test Case, or MTC for short. The process of deleting everything else in your show to create the MTC may even help you to find the issue.

Thanks for the pointer Drew,  I found the issue in that some of the effects had gotten a 90 degree pan on them and were thus not meeting the criteria for Pan, Tilt and Spin.  I was able to correct the effects and was able to generate correct rack numbers and locations (although I found it easier to create a Dummy rack for the Cakes like I did for the fan/slices just so everything racks) except the ground effects.  Now the only issue is that the angle display on the rack doesn’t display.  If I hover over the effects in the rack they show the correct angle but the rack itself doesn’t.  One of the things I had to change in the rack definition was to say the rack was fully adjustable instead of fixed angle (even though the physical rack is straight up and the whole thing can be angled as needed).  With fixed angle definition the angled effects were not being racked.