Engineer Cat wrote: Drew, about a week ago I started to get notices that there is an update available. I have been ignoring it in fear I will loose or wont be able to open the current shows I’m working on since instructions at the beginning of the contest stated we must have this particular version of the software running to use the pyrojam template. Can I allow it to update?   Great question, the competition instructions say to make sure you’re running the 2022.12.19 beta release of Finale 3D or newer. The key words in this case are “or newer”. In short, you should not have any problem if your update to the most recent beta release. Additionally, if for any reason you did experience an issue, you could simply roll back to the release you were previously running. You can run any release of Finale 3D at any time just by downloading/installing.

  brad wrote: Angles clarification. PROX and FRONT say no angle restrictions, but that only certain items can be shot horizontally.   For all other items, Is anything less than 90 degrees “not horizontal,” or is there a generally accepted max angle (e.g: 60, 80) we need to stick to?   Thanks,   – Brad   Yes, that’s correct, only certain items can be shot horizontally, and the items that qualify for horizontal shooting go on the Prox positions. For everything else fired from the Prox or Front positions, no angle restrictions mean you can fire at any angle less than 90 degrees from vertical. In theory, that means you could fire an item at 89 degrees, but since the non-horizontal items will be fired from ground level, it may not make sense to use such an aggressive angle. The spirit of the rules is to try to give you a much creative freedom as possible, that’s the reason no hard limit is set.

Drew, about a week ago I started to get notices that there is an update available. I have been ignoring it in fear I will loose or wont be able to open the current shows I’m working on since instructions at the beginning of the contest stated we must have this particular version of the software running to use the pyrojam template. Can I allow it to update?

Angles clarification.  PROX and FRONT say no angle restrictions, but that only certain items can be shot horizontally.   For all other items, Is anything less than 90 degrees “not horizontal,” or is there a generally accepted max angle (e.g: 60, 80) we need to stick to?   Thanks,   – Brad  

Hi Curtis, you can search all of the Finale 3D documentation, videos, and forum topics using the search box in the Help Center.   Yes, you can build a custom report to give you angle counts per position using the Pro version of Finale 3D. If you’ve already tried the built-in reports in ‘File > Reports’ and didn’t find what you need, here are some resources for making custom reports:   Forum topic with overview on creating custom reports: https://finale3d.com/groups/english/forum/topic/custom-report-syntax/ Video tutorial demonstrating how to create custom reports: https://finale3d.com/search-results/?keyword=%22Custom%20report%22&type=video

Awesome !   Thanks !

  ArtiDan wrote: Hi Drew,   Regarding Matt Loreto’s question about cakes and your answer, is it possible to reverse the firing direction of a Cake-Slice, so for example instead of firing left to right, it would become right to left ?   Thanks !   Hi ArtiDan, yes, it’s possible and it’s permitted in the competition because it doesn’t require any physical modifications to the cake. In the real world, the crew would simply place the cake on the ground in the opposite orientation. In Finale 3D, you can accomplish this by selecting the cake in your show, then going to ‘Script > Angles > Rotate cakes 180 degrees’.  

Hi Drew,   Regarding Matt Loreto’s question about cakes and your answer, is it possible to reverse the firing direction of a Cake-Slice, so for example instead of firing left to right, it would become right to left ?   Thanks !

Awesome I will watch that now! Thank you for the speedy response!