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Effects coordinate system: pan, tilt, spin
In Finale 3D, the angles of effects are represented as three numbers: pan, tilt, and spin. Of the many possible ways to represent angles, Finale 3D chooses this representation because the three numbers, pan, tilt, and spin, correspond directly to the three degrees of freedom of a moving head light fixture. If you ever forget what pan, tilt, and spin mean, you can just imagine a moving head light fixture in the orientation of Figure 1, and the meanings of the angles will pop out as the only possibilities. It bears mentioning here that positions in the scene (pyro launch positions and DMX fixtures) use a different representation for their angles that is more natural for their orientations (heading, pitch, and roll). The positions' angle representation is described in Positions coordinate system. For fireworks effects, the three angles of a moving head light fixture may seem excessive. A fireworks show whose effects are either aiming straight up or tilting left and right would only need one angle. But if effects can also tilt forward toward the audience then a second angle is required. If the show contains cakes that can be flipped around to face the opposite direction then a third angle is required. So while one angle is enough for many kinds of fireworks shows, it takes three angles to cover all the possibilities, even for fireworks. Figure 1 – To understand pan, tilt and spin, imagine a moving head light fixture. Pan, tilt, and spin The picture in Figure 1 is the image to have in mind for the definitions of pan, tilt, and spin, even if what you care about is fireworks. The moving head light fixture has three degrees of freedom, which correspond to the pan, tilt and spin. With pan, tilt, and spin all being zero, the head of fixture and thus its beam direction aim straight up, as in Figure 1. The head is mounted in a U-shaped yoke on an axis that enables the head to rotate forward toward the viewer by the tilt. With angles being zero the U-shaped yoke is facing the viewer. The yoke itself is mounted on a base plate in a fashion that enables it to rotate on the plate by the pan to face different directions, toward the viewer, to the side, etc. Although it isn't visible in Figure 1, the head may contain a stencil pattern internally, through which the light beam shines to make a pattern like the Batman logo that is projected into the clouds on television. The stencil, which is called a "gobo", can rotate by the spin. You can easily imagine the projected Batman logo spinning in the clouds, and you connect that image to the rotating gobo in the light head. With the mechanical model of Figure 1 firmly in mind, you can relate the definitions of pan, tilt, and spin to the three possible rotations of the moving head fixture: Pan is the rotation on the base. Tilt is the rotation in the yoke. Spin is the rotation around beam axis. "Right Hand Rule" All three of these rotations follow the "Right Hand Rule" to resolve whether positive angle rotations are clockwise or counter-clockwise. The Right Hand Rule states that if you hold your right hand out with your thumb aiming in the direction of the axis of rotation, then your fingers will curl in the direction corresponding to a positive angle. Following this convention, pan rotates the yoke around to the right, counter-clockwise as seen from above. Tilt rotates the head toward the viewer. Spin rotates Batman logo on the beam to the right, counter clockwise. Table 1 – Order of Euler Angle rotations producing a rotated vector v' from vector v v' = v * R1 * R2 * R3 Rotation First rotation (R1) Rotate around global Y-axis by spin Second rotation (R2) Rotate around global X-axis by tilt Third rotation (R3) Rotate around global Y-axis by pan As you can see, the order of the three rotations matters to their definition. Spin and pan are actually rotations around the same global Y-axis, differing only by which one is the first rotation and which one is the last rotation. Referring back to the moving head light fixture of Figure 1, the order of rotations of Table 1 is the only possible choice that matches the physical constraints of the fixture. If pan were the first rotation, for example, then tilting around the global X-axis wouldn't be possible because the yoke wouldn't necessarily be facing forward. Table 2 – Range of angles in conversions from orientations Angle Range Pan (-180°, +180°] Tilt [0°, +180°] Spin (-180°, +180°] Any orientation can be represented by pan, tilt, and spin angles in the ranges of Table 2. Some orientations have multiple representations within these ranges that are equivalent. If tilt is 0° then pan and spin do exactly the same thing! Mathematically, in this Euler Angle representation all rotation sequences with tilt = 0° or 180° are equivalent to a rotation sequence in which +/- pan and spin sum to a constant value. In circumstances in which an orientation is converted to a rotation sequence that is not uniquely defined, Finale 3D will choose the rotation sequence with spin = 0°, which creates a 1-to-1 relationship between orientations and Euler Angles in the ranges of Table 2. These ranges are not limits, though, in Finale 3D's user interface and tables. You can enter any pan, tilt and spin value into the script table columns, including numbers outside these ranges. Orientations of pyro effects The firework example in Figure 2 is as simple as can be -- a comet effect is tilted 45 degrees to the right. You might expect that an example like this would have pan = 0, tilt = 45, and spin = 0 since the tilt seems like the only rotation, but if you look again at Figure 1 you will remind yourself that when pan = 0 the tilt rotates toward the audience. Thus, tilting an effect to the right requires pan = 90 to rotate the yoke shown in Figure 1 to face to the right, enabling the tilt to rotate the effect 45 degrees to the right instead of toward the audience. Thus Figure 2 shows pan = 90, tilt = 45. If you want to confirm the pan = 90 you can try this simple example yourself and then unhide the Pan column in the script window from the blue gear menu in the upper right. Figure 2 – A comet or shell tilted 45 degrees to the right has pan = 90, tilt = 45, spin = anything. Unlike the Batman logo in the moving head light example, the comet in Figure 2 is rotationally symmetric. Spinning a comet around its beam axis doesn't make any difference, so the spin in Figure 2 can be anything. That's not true for cakes with angles though, such as the fan cake shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 – A tilted fan cake requires spin = -pan to face the audience while tilted, e.g., pan = 90, tilt = 45, spin -90. Tilting a fan cake to the right requires all three angles -- pan, tilt, and spin. The pan = 90 makes the yoke face the right, which is required for tilting it to the right. Tilt = 45 tilts the cake to the right, same as in Figure 2. But if spin is 0, the fan cake will still face the right, on account of the pan = 90. Instead of the image of Figure 3, we'd be looking at the fan from the side, and the image would look more like Figure 2! Setting spin = -pan returns the effect to face the audience while tilted. The tutorial of Video 1 includes an example of a tilted cake. Video 1 – Tutorial for pan, tilt, and spin
Reply To: Time format FPS
I see, that's great. Hybrid multimedia/drone/lighting/pyro/sfx shows have so much potential. Part of the vision of Finale is to enable designers to advance the artistic and creative state of the art. Supporting hybrid shows is therefore key to the vision. I am mentioning because of your comment that that is what you are doing, and I want you to know how important that is to us. One of the cool things about authoring software for these domains is that the software tools in the various domains have their own UI ideas and authoring paradigms that sometimes can apply to other domains, which may bring some new life and innovation to the other domains that have settled into their own authoring paradigms. If you have noticed UI ideas in other software you use, or design paradigms that you think might be usable within Finale, please post on the forums! Screenshots from other authoring software and an explanation of how the UI works or what is innovative are a great way to initiate a productive conversation. Will
Reply To: Time format FPS
Thank you very much for answering and for putting on the to-do list will help us a lot. Another thing I wanted to comment I am a pyrotechnics designer and motion desinger also and I do video mapping and I usually work the animations in "frames" to make a multimedia show with pyro. This company I work with we also use "FRAMES" for pyrotechnics in the firing times, is it possible to include this resolution like Adobe After Effects does for example in their timeline? Thnak you :) Will DrewFinale
Reply To: custom simulation height
Thanks for explaining. It's been fun to play with the blob style, but as soon as I tried to make a predictable looking product sim, based off a manufacturer's videos, it can get overwhelming, and even though color, sound and a few other parameters were easy to see changes, height was giving me trouble, especially on mines that don't quite launch.
Reply To: Import CSV file > Firing positions confused with the origin man
Hello, Thank you for your answer. In our workflow, we program our shows in others softwares. In these softwares, we have of course the angle of the positions and the angles of the effects in 3D. Then, we import a csv file into Finale 3D to get the simulation. So yes the ability to import positions angles and 3D effect angles is very important for us! :)
Reply To: Import CSV file > Firing positions confused with the origin man
Hello, you found a bug. We recently added more information to the coordinates field of the Finale Generic CSV export file format (adding the angle of the position and the angle of the effect in 3D), but we forgot to make import handle the extra information if you try to import Finale Generic CSV. So at this moment, if you export a Finale Generic CSV and reimport it, all the positions appear at coordinates 0, 0, 0, the location of Origin Man. (For specifications of the coordinates information in Finale Generic CSV, see "Coordinates" in Table 3 of https://finale3d.com/documentation/finale-generic-csv-file-format/). An immediate workaround if you are in a pinch is to edit the "Coordinates" column of the Finale Generic CSV spreadsheet. Each cell in this column contains nine floating point numbers. Delete the last six, and then the file will import with correct position coordinates. I have fixed the problem already, and a new beta release will be coming out this week with the fix. The fix, however, just imports the position coordinates; it doesn't import the position angles or 3D effect angles. We have never round-tripped that information through Finale Generic CSV before. We could do that, but it would be a bit more work. If the ability to export and reimport position angles and 3D effect angles is important to you, could you describe the use case so we can understand the context?
Import CSV file > Firing positions confused with the origin man
When I export a show (Export > Export script as Finale Generic csv...), I have in my csv file the names of my positions (column Position Name) and the coordinates of my positions (column Coordinates). Why when I import this file (Import > Import into a new show... > Do-it-yourself CSC file...), my positions are not at their place and are confused with the origin man?
Reply To: Time format FPS
Hey Will, i just want to explain in which use case i need this...... I often got cuelists which i have to import as a marker into finale 3d. So for me it would be great to have during the import Dialog "do it your self CSV" a possible to say that the time which i want to import have a special format and that finale For the script window i prefer the variant as it is at the moment but i think a generated column which shows the show time format with the ugly millisecond remainders would be a good addition to have acces to it in the script window and reports. KR
Reply To: custom simulation height
Adding to Dusty's reply, when you want to edit Visual Descriptive Language (VDL) by typing readable words, typically you right-click on an effect and select 'Edit this effect simulation...' When you want to create a custom simulation and have full control over all aspects of an effect, you right-click on the effect and select 'Customize this effect simulation's parameters....' These are two ways to created/edit effects.
Reply To: Multiple shots on 1 cue
Hi Mark, the answer depends on which version of Finale 3D you are running. In Lite, you can limit the number of pins used by limiting the items you add to a position and then restricting each module to a single position when addressing. For example, if you have a position with just 12 salute chains and nothing else, then a single module will be assigned to that position and only 12 pins will be used. The other option in Lite would be to manually hand-key in the addresses you want. In the Hobbyist version, you can take further with more options to constrain modules and selectively lock and unlock addresses. For example, you can restrict each module to a single part number, this would give you the desired result. In Pro, there are many more options, my favorite way to achieve this is by dragging and dropping racks in to two separate clusters (one for salute chains and one for color chains), and then restricting each module to a single rack cluster. To see how max. e-matches per pin works, start small. Open a new blank show and add two of the same effect on the same position at the same time. Next, address the show with a max. of 1 e-match per pin. You will see that the first item gets rail 1 pin 1 and the second item gets rail 1 pin 2. Now address the show again and change the max. to 2. Now you will see that both items are assigned rail 1, pin 1. Build up from there... It's also worth noting that any manual addressing you do isn't taken into account whatsoever when you then do 'Addressing > Address show...' In other words, when you address your show, the slate is wiped clean, anything you have typed in the rail and pin columns is completely and utterly blown away.