Welcome to the Finale 3D forum and thanks for the very articulate post. I’m 99% certain that I know the cause of the problem you’re having, but to be sure, I’d like to have you send over a minimal test case (MTC). You mentioned that the problem is reproducible, which is ideal. For the MTC, just add the custom effects that result in a broken cake to the timeline but don’t combine them into cake. Send the FIN file with the custom effects to support@finale3d.com. When I get the show file, I’ll select the effects on the timeline, combine them as a cake, and then reopen the show to reproduce the issue.   Assuming my hunch is correct, the problem is a deficiency on our end, in combination with the character limit of the VDL field. It’s not your fault, and you absolutely do not need to start over. The long explanation is that we’ve recently been working on a slew of improvements to the custom effect editor. One of the temporary side effects is that length of the strings of characters that represent custom effects have grown much too long. Therefore, when you combine multiple custom effects into a cake, you can exceed the length limitation of the VDL field. The solution is for us to bring custom effect compression up to date, we just haven’t quite gotten to it yet. There’s really no good work around for you to employ at the moment. We understand this is a hindrance, we’ll get it resolved as quickly as possible.

Hello. I’m hoping someone can help me understand a problem I’m having and how to avoid it. I have various custom cakes made from custom effects. Most of my cakes are fine, but a few always get mangled after reloading them. The effect simulations function fine while the show is open, but if I save everything, close and re-open the show, the cakes load incorrectly. They have all the angles set to 0°, sometimes the timing is messed up, and/or sometimes they revert to a single shot of a default VDL effect and/or have other attributes messed up, but I’m not sure exactly why. It’s always the same combinations of effects that cause the problems and everything is consistently reproduceable from the point of creating the cake(s), so it seems to be a problem with these specific effects. The individual effect sims are all still fine outside of the cake formation and I can recombine them into a cake, which works fine, until I save, close, reopen again, and then the cake is back to the same broken state again.   I don’t fully understand how the VDL and custom simulation syntax works with each other, but my initial guess is that at some point while adjusting effect parameters, something introduced some junk data into the syntax that I don’t actually have 1:1 control over from the effect UI (edge case of inputs, values, race condition, etc?), and throughout creating these various effects and copy/pasting certain sections of effect data among different sims, I’ve littered some of my sims with this junk that works fine to save and load as an individual effect, until I try to combine specific combinations of these “broken” effects into a cake and load it into Finale 3D, and then something in the syntax becomes a problem and everything falls apart from there.   Is this remotely plausible or does anyone have any other ideas? Does it seem reasonable to salvage my current sims or should I discard any that are having problems and start over with them? Any tips on the first place to start looking for the problem within the effects data? The obvious solution would be to start from scratch with new sims, but I have so much time and effort invested in what I have so far that I would really rather know what the problem is so I can avoid it, if possible.

  Moises Luis Exposito wrote: Hi, I work with a client in fps in this case 30fps and I don’t understand why the column “effect time” is in 30fps but the “event time” is in milliseconds. When a product has “prefire” I have the “effect time” in 30fps but I need to know when the item starts in fps too. Why is it in milliseconds? this confuses me. Is there any way to change this or am I not doing it right. DrewFinale Thanks         Hi, when this cuestion is posible to fix? I am making new proyects for 2023 and the new updates not inlude thi fix. I hope soon. Thank you

Thank you.　I understand very well. I was able to download and import VVIZ successfully!

Also: I just modified the documentation pages with the links you mentioned so when you click on those VVIZ links, the files will download instead of opening up in a browser page.

Hello, yes, the “VVIZ” file format as an open interchange file format for drone shows, which Finale 3D can import.   As of today, two drone fleet companies support the VVIZ format: Verge Aero, and Drone Show Software (DSS).  If you buy drone design software from another company, please tell them that you would like them to export the VVIZ format so that you can import the shows into Finale 3D to design fireworks along with them.  The specifications for the file format are here: https://finale3d.com/documentation/vviz-file-format/.   We are happy to assist drone companies to export this format or to test their exporters.  Feel free to introduce them to me personally, will@finale3d.com.

Thank you for always providing the best service!   I am unable to download this file. Is there any way to get it? Our company is planning a drone and fireworks show. And we are considering drone show software. Will you be able to import software other than Verge Aero in the future?  

Site Layout Diagrams (Flags)   Its great that we are able to move the flags as they are overlapping. But in general is suggest to make it possible that we are able to select a group of flags to move them in the rack window. As you can imagine if you have a production with a bigger amount of positions, e.g. 60 positions…. its quiet stupid to drag flag by flag.      

  joelinvan wrote: Two questions about sound and music:   1. I have a single-track, 15-minute-long piece of music. Is there a way for me to break that into sections that I can jump to?   You can use the editing features in Finale 3D to break a soundtrack apart, but this won’t help you jump from one point in the soundtrack to another. We don’t really have a feature at the moment for adding waypoints or bookmarks to a soundtrack. A decent workaround would be to add camera keyframes from the Camera menu and then select rows in the Camera window to jump from one keyframe to another. For reference, camera keyframes as primary meant for creating camera animation during playback, but you can disable camera motion from the Camera menu. Here’s a documentation article on camera animation: https://finale3d.com/documentation/camera-animation/     2. When I import the song into Finale, does it stay as a stereo track, or does it get mixed down to mono? Similarly, when I export a video is the audio in mono or stereo?   No mono mixdown at any point. Stereo at import; stereo in exported videos.  

  joelinvan wrote: Hello,   Two questions about developing specific looks for effects:   1. Is there a way to affect the density of stars in a shell? For example; I want to make a brocade, but I only want 27 stars to come out of it. For context, and in case someone has a better idea, I’m working with an individual who has a vision for a show and we’re trying to develop it. He has described the look he is trying to get as ’27 comets exploding like a star in random directions high in the sky’.   Fon context, there are two ways to tune an effect in Finale 3D. The most common is just by typing words (VDL). You can adjust the number of stars in a shell using VDL adjustment terms. For example, if you want few stars you can use “Slightly Sparse”, “Sparse”, or “Very Sparse”. For a complete list of VDL adjustment terms, see: https://finale3d.com/documentation/vdl-effect-adjustment-terms-big-bright-etc   You can also adjust the number of stars (and virtually any other characteristic) in a shell using the effect editor. The effect editor is accessible by right clicking on an existing effect in the Effect window and selecting ‘Customize this effect simulation’s parameters’. To adjust the number of stars in the effect editor, select the ‘Break’ node and then adjust the star-count parameter. The benefit of using the effect editor is you can specify the exact number of stars, like 27, which can’t be done using VDL. However, keep in mind that an effect can either be a “VDL effect” (represented by words), or a “Custom effect” that can ONLY be edited in the effect editor, but it can’t be both. This means, once you customize an effect using the effect editor, you always have to come back to the effect editor to adjust it.     2. Are there resources to better understand building macros? Specifically, I’m working on a girandola effect right now trying to get it to look the way I want, but this may inform question 1 as well. I see that I can attach different effects to different stages of the girandola, but no matter what effects I attach they continue to look very similar. In my case, we get a bit of a sparkling herb look on the ground, but when it rises it just has a blue glow, then goes gold and burns out. It seems I should be able to build a multi-stage piece where it has a nice fountain coming out of it, then it changes colours, and then maybe even engages another engine that flies it further into the air.   Thanks all!     Effect macros documentation: https://finale3d.com/documentation/effect-macros   The macro functionality probably won’t help you with the girandola. The best you can probably do is a combination of custom effects and set of options available in ‘Script > Insert moving effect > Insert girandola’. With a multi-stage girandola, you can have one effect per stage. The effect can either be a VDL effect (represented by words), or a custom simulation that you make in the effect editor (represented by a long string of characters in {curly braces}).