Check out this video to learn how to create a 500g zipper cake in Finale 3D:   https://www.loom.com/share/b24f3b81b5dc47fa805bbdd8907eba6f

Hi FOG fireworks + sfx GmbH, great request, thanks for posting. We plan to add this functionality in the future. We envision that you will be able to upload your custom blueprints to your online account and share them with other users in your company. We don't have an estimated release date for this feature I will take your request as a vote to bump it up on the priority list!

I wish a blueprint synchronisation similar to the syncing of the my effects window. Most we working on more than one project until one gets finished. When we improve our report or adressing blueprints cause we need them the first time in another way, they are only saved in this specific showfile. Its a kind of pitty work to copy and paste them ever from specific showfile to several other actual files. We already use craet new show from startUp Template but that doenst help in the daily work with more than one Showfile which is still in a editing phase.  

All of the table windows in Finale support copy/paste between Excel, which is the general way to import data in Finale.   You can copy/paste rows or cells or selection rectangles of cells, in either direction to or from Excel.   To select a rectangle of cells in a Finale table, double-click on a cell and hold the button down on the second click, and drag to enlarge the box.  When you then copy (control-C), the data from those cells will be placed in the copy buffer.  You can paste (control-V) into Excel or NotePad to look at the data in the copy buffer.   If you copy/paste cells or a rectangle of cells, the dimensions of the data copied into the copy buffer should match the selected rectangle of cells you are pasting into, so the data fit correctly.   If you copy/paste rows (as opposed to cells) into a Finale table, then the situation is a little different -- the copy buffer must contain a header row in addition to the data rows.  The header row contains the names of the columns of data, in English.  When you paste rows into a Finale table, the pasted rows will be added as new rows to the table.  The order of the columns does not matter, because the column names in the header determine how each column of data will be imported (You may need to switch the UI to English to make the column headers match; I can't remember).  You do not need to have all columns in the copy buffer.  The only required column for pasting into the positions window is the "Position" column with the position name.   Pasting rows into Finale always adds the rows.  If the position name of a row matches an existing position name already in the table, then the pasted position name will be extended (example Pos-01 --> Pos-01(01) to avoid the conflict.).  If you want to change data instead of adding new columns, then you are better off pasting over cells or selection rectangles of cells.  You can right click on a column header in Finale and do "Select column" from the context menu to select the full column, as a convenience for copy/paste.   Based on these instructions, you have many options for importing your position coordinates with copy/paste.  The same options apply to all the other data windows too -- script, effects, blueprints, etc.   You can also export the positions table to a CSV or XLS from the blue gear menu in the upper right of the positions table.   The only complexity for position coordinates is that the XYZ coordinates are combined into a single column in Finale.  So if your XYZ coordinates are separate columns in the data you want to paste into Finale, then you need to combine them into a single column in Excel using a formula.  In the spreadsheet shown in the image, the formula used in Excel to combine the XYZ coordinates into a single column was: =CONCAT( C5," ",D5," ",E5)      

We can extract a CSV file from SketchUp. Thus we have our shooting position coordinates. Could you please explain me how to inject our shooting positions coordinates into the Finale 3D CSV and directly have all our shooting points in Finale 3D? Thank you.

I understand.  For small shows it is not uncommon for people to create position names like P1, P2, P3, and to want the position number to be the same as the module number (or "channel" in Cobra terminology).  This strategy works as long as each position needs only a single module.   In Finale 3D the position names are unrelated the module numbers, so even if you have three positions P1, P2, and P3, and each requires a single module, when you press the "P" key to address the show it is possible that P1 gets assigned module #2 or #3.   To make the module numbers match the numbers in the position names, you just have to set the "Start Module" for each position to the module number.  If you want position P2 to use module #2, the right click on position P2 and do "Edit position properties" from the context menu.  Then set the "Start Module" to 2.  If any of your positions requires more than a single module, it will keep counting up from the Start Module, and you would need to make sure that counting up doesn't overlap the Start Module of another position.   A quick way to set the Start Module for a lot of positions all at once is to open the Positions window from the bottom of the Positions menu (Positions > Positions Window).  Then you can type in the Start Module numbers into the Start Module column.

Will Sorry about taking up your time I used to be able to name and number all 27 of my modules (examples module name 6-4in and then after numbering all modules from 1-27 with the number and shell size  by clicking on (edit position properties) and all is good but when I start adding effects to many modules then pressing P to assign addresses the Scrip window has made it so that a lot of the rail numbers do not match the module or position numbers (example in photo to follow)thanks for help

Adding onto Simon's answer about light fades, most pyro+DMX controllers do not implement a ramp function in hardware, so the only way to implement a fade is with a rapid sequence of events.  That can be an issue with the controller's script rows limit, as Simon points out, but it doesn't totally rule out the idea.   Here are the steps we are taking to support fades:   1) In the last three or four RGB DMX light fixture implementations we've supported (Chauvet EZPar64 and Rockville Battery Par 50 and High End UNO), we've been implementing the DMX patch libraries differently in order to lay the groundwork for supporting fades.  Specifically, for effects like "Red Flash (lg)" or "Red Flash (sm)", instead of using the master dimmer DMX channel to control the intensity of "(lg)" versus "(sm)" we've been scaling the RGB channel values themselves and leaving the master dimmer at 100%.  That leaves the master dimmer available for a modifier effect to further adjust the intensity by way of reducing the master dimmer to lower than 100%.  For these recent fixture effect libraries we have added ten new effects to the effect libraries,   "With Master Dimmer at 0%" "With Master Dimmer at 10%" "With Master Dimmer at 20%" etc.   You can add these modifier effects to a fixture in the show and stretch their duration to cover whatever duration you want them to apply over, and they will scale the overall intensity of all the fixture's effects within that duration according to the chosen %.  These effects provide a rudimentary ability to implement your own fades, by placing these effects back to back, and scaling down the intensity in 10% chunks.   2) We are working on new functions called "Create DMX effect" and "Edit DMX effects" which are similar to "Create effect"  and "Edit effect" except they also provide a simple user interface for you to specify the DMX channel values that implement the effect.  These functions enable you to create/edit your own effects for your own fixtures without needing to edit the DMX Patch field of the effects or go through the programmer-like steps that are currently required to implement your own effects.  This feature will be available in two weeks.   3) We have an eye toward adding a "ramp" checkbox to the user interface DMX channel/value rows in the dialog of (2).  When you check this checkbox, our exporter will automatically implement the ramp in the most efficient manner based on your firing system or DMX controller's capabilities.  If the controller has hardware ramps, then the exporter will use that capability.  Otherwise, the exporter will automatically create a sequence of events to implement the ramp manually, in steps.  This implementation obviously consumes are large number of event rows in the script, but used sparingly it may still be useful in some designs while keeping within the limits of the controller's script size.  We expect to implement this feature late this year.

Hello everyone, Oliver here, a newbie and just started exploring the world of Finale 3d starting to enjoy it :)

Hello fellow pyros!  My name is Jeff and I have an addiction.   This is my second year using Finale3d (third year attempting a pyromusical) and all I can say is WOW this software is a game changer!  I only shoot 1x per year on the 4th but I am realizing that I should be using Finale3d more than that so I can better learn he program.  The support is fantastic however even in the "11th hour" of need.