Hi Star Stuff, thanks for the bump. Unfortunately, no, I haven’t seen any response. I know the VR is probably a big effort, but I still think it would be a game changer.   Tim Star_Stuff wrote: My apology. I thought I was replying to your original post from last May here it is again: I haven’t gone through this whole thread, but my search landed on your post. Did Drew get back to you on any of these? Speed of play back was what I was interested in. I liked all of your recommendations. CTRL Y gets me sometimes. …and mirroring. …but then I saw your last note. Even without the immersive aspect putting a show through the occulus Quest3 it was very nice! Sky Fire Forge wrote: Hi All, now that the PyroJam competition is over (congrats to the winners, looking forward to being there in person), I wanted to share some of my thought on using Finale 3D, now that I finally got them down on paper. This was really my first time seriously using Finale and first and foremost, I found it a great piece of software to use. It is very user friendly and intuitive. However, being the good engineer, I have a few fixes and improvements I’d like to see. Please take these with a grain of salt since I am a true novice and may not have found some of these in the software. Also, these comments are limited to scripting as I didn’t do anything with addressing, site layout, or rack design and are based on version 2024.02.23-18f9290b1. Fixes: – In the script window, when setting a filter for cue count, it only shows the first 999 cues. It should go all the way to the end of the show. – In the script window “Part Number” is available to be used as a filter. However, it is not available in the effect window. This would be very handy to have in the effect window as well. – In the “Render Settings”, all the settings seem to save between session of using Finale, except “Particle Limit”. Please consider having “Particle Limit” save between sessions. – Similar to other Windows applications, pressing Ctrl the dragging an item or items will copy them in the timeline or in the render window. However, unlike other windows applications, you cannot drag the item(s) then press Ctrl to copy. Please fix so that order of operation doesn’t matter. Improvements: – Sometimes, I found I was accidentally opening a window (example, the fan window) and wanted to get out of it right away using the keyboard. I found myself hitting ESC to close the window, but that doesn’t work. I would suggest having ESC assigned as the cancel button. – Being used to the Windows standard redo of Crtl-Y, it took a while to get used to Ctrl-Shift-Z for redo, I would suggest adding Crtl-Y as redo. – It would be nice to have the ability to adjust playback speed in the simulation and not just when generating a video to help fine tune timing. – A few times I just wanted to see what a single cue looked like. An isolated window that showed just a preview of the selected cue might be helpful. – Several times I created an effect on one side of the layout but wanted to quickly mirror it to the other side using the same timing and effects, just the opposite angles. A mirror function would be really handy instead of manually having to set the other side up. Really Cool Idea: – Any thoughts about integrating VR headsets (like Oculus) into Finale 3D? I think that would be totally amazing to watch a simulation in a fully immersive 3D environment!!! Thanks for listening, Tim

  LilyPyro wrote: Hi ! I wanted to use the 360° towers, but I have a question about angle restrictions: I put an effect every 0.1 seconds to obtain a rotating effect. As a result, I don’t really have a complete revolution every time, but it’s close. So I wanted to know if it still worked for the restrictions or not ? Thanks ! Hi LilyPyro, I want to make sure I’m understanding your question correctly.  First, you said “360* towers”, so let’s make sure we are both talking about the same positions.  The “Tower” Positions (T-1…and T-2…) are limited to angles from -70* to 70*, but the “Wheel Position (WH) allows you to place items in a circular pattern 360 degrees around the position.  Make sure you are only trying to create the rotating effect on the “Wheel” position in the center. Keep in mind you may only use one or the other (either the two “Tower” positions or the single “Wheel” Position)   Hopefully his helps answer your question, but if not, please let me know specifically what problem you are having placing the devices as you would like to use them from the “WH” position.

Hi ! I wanted to use the 360° towers, but I have a question about angle restrictions: I put an effect every 0.1 seconds to obtain a rotating effect. As a result, I don’t really have a complete revolution every time, but it’s close. So I wanted to know if it still worked for the restrictions or not ? Thanks !

My apology.  I thought I was replying to your original post from last May here it is again: I haven’t gone through this whole thread, but my search landed on your post.  Did Drew get back to you on any of these?  Speed of play back was what I was interested in.   I liked all of your recommendations.  CTRL Y gets me sometimes.  …and mirroring.  …but then I saw your last note.  Even without the immersive aspect putting a show through the occulus Quest3 it was very nice! Sky Fire Forge wrote: Hi All, now that the PyroJam competition is over (congrats to the winners, looking forward to being there in person), I wanted to share some of my thought on using Finale 3D, now that I finally got them down on paper. This was really my first time seriously using Finale and first and foremost, I found it a great piece of software to use. It is very user friendly and intuitive. However, being the good engineer, I have a few fixes and improvements I’d like to see. Please take these with a grain of salt since I am a true novice and may not have found some of these in the software. Also, these comments are limited to scripting as I didn’t do anything with addressing, site layout, or rack design and are based on version 2024.02.23-18f9290b1. Fixes: – In the script window, when setting a filter for cue count, it only shows the first 999 cues. It should go all the way to the end of the show. – In the script window “Part Number” is available to be used as a filter. However, it is not available in the effect window. This would be very handy to have in the effect window as well. – In the “Render Settings”, all the settings seem to save between session of using Finale, except “Particle Limit”. Please consider having “Particle Limit” save between sessions. – Similar to other Windows applications, pressing Ctrl the dragging an item or items will copy them in the timeline or in the render window. However, unlike other windows applications, you cannot drag the item(s) then press Ctrl to copy. Please fix so that order of operation doesn’t matter. Improvements: – Sometimes, I found I was accidentally opening a window (example, the fan window) and wanted to get out of it right away using the keyboard. I found myself hitting ESC to close the window, but that doesn’t work. I would suggest having ESC assigned as the cancel button. – Being used to the Windows standard redo of Crtl-Y, it took a while to get used to Ctrl-Shift-Z for redo, I would suggest adding Crtl-Y as redo. – It would be nice to have the ability to adjust playback speed in the simulation and not just when generating a video to help fine tune timing. – A few times I just wanted to see what a single cue looked like. An isolated window that showed just a preview of the selected cue might be helpful. – Several times I created an effect on one side of the layout but wanted to quickly mirror it to the other side using the same timing and effects, just the opposite angles. A mirror function would be really handy instead of manually having to set the other side up. Really Cool Idea: – Any thoughts about integrating VR headsets (like Oculus) into Finale 3D? I think that would be totally amazing to watch a simulation in a fully immersive 3D environment!!! Thanks for listening, Tim

I haven’t gone through this whole thread, but my search landed on your post.  Did Drew get back to you on any of these?  Speed of play back was what I was interested in.   I liked all of your recommendations.  CTRL Y gets me sometimes.  …and mirroring.  …but then I saw your last note.  Even without the immersive aspect putting a show through the occulus Quest3 it was very nice!

When grouping effects and editing that group, you can only see the effects in that group. I use grouping to help reduce clutter on the timeline only, but when editing a group of effects, it’s helpful to know how my changes are affecting the show segment overall without having to go in and out of group editing. I envision an “eye” icon next to the zoom and hazard icons that can be toggled to show all show effects in the design window or use current behavior; however, the timeline would still only show the group’s effects. A user setting to set the default behavior would be nice as well as I don’t think I would use the current behavior much if this were available.

Thanks Drew for your input, it’s very helpful.   I edit all my music outside of Finale 3D.   Using Cobra show creator,  I would combine all the music files together and then import them. But given Finale 3D can import individual songs, that’s what got me thinking. If you want to make changes to the entire show, it seems a best practice would be to import each individually. If you create one sound file for all the songs, then how would you only remove the middle song? Maybe not, I don’t know. Can you cut just a section of song within Finale 3D?   1. I would think a best practice for having flexibility in your show to make changes would be to always import songs and scripts independently and not utilize one large multi song music file (Unless you are certain on the song choices etc, but even then why not maintain flexibility, but that’s a personal preference).  What are your thoughts?   2. Always create a Site Show Template first. Then utilize the template when scripting each song. This will allow for easier copy and paste. Thoughts?   What about importing songs, is it best to stick with stereo initially? I’ve used SMPTE in the the past. So if you want to preserve the flexibility, does that mean I need to retain the stereo format? (multi channel track).  But what If I decide I want to utilize mono? Does it matter what version of the song I initially import Mono or stereo? Let’s say I go to a shoot and all of sudden the idea of using SMPTE is not going to work, meaning I have to use the audio box or vice versa.   Just trying to avoid traps that limit my flexibility to adapt to as many situations as I can.   Work flow for a three song show>   Step 1. – Edit all the songs as required for the main show and then create a separate MP3 file for each (starting with WAV format then back to MP3 to get rid of the artifacts –every time I import a song, there are artifacts)   Step 2. Create a site layout template (Any insights on best practices here would be useful)   Step 3. Open site layout and create script for first song and save as .fin file, rinse repeat for the other two songs.   Step 4. Open site layout template and then import all three songs via cut and paste   Thanks. Brett

  Pyro_73400000 wrote: Thank you Tim! I’ve synced with the network but I think something went wrong in some places: 1) PFX15FR-R, PFX15FR-V –> the duration of the cake slices are 14 seconds 2) JY4-0217 –> is listed now under 3 inch but it should be 4 inch I guess? And the shell explodes 1-2 seconds after the cue in the timeline 3) JY5-0378-GSW –> the effect is still a Ti-Willow and not the same as 3 and 4 inch Thank you very much 🙂 Oops, that was weird, but check them now.

Thank you Tim! I’ve synced with the network but I think something went wrong in some places: 1) PFX15FR-R, PFX15FR-V –> the duration of the cake slices are 14 seconds 2) JY4-0217 –> is listed now under 3 inch but it should be 4 inch I guess? And the shell explodes 1-2 seconds after the cue in the timeline 3) JY5-0378-GSW –> the effect is still a Ti-Willow and not the same as 3 and 4 inch Thank you very much 🙂

  Pyro_73400000 wrote: Hi Tim, hi Drew, I’ve got a few questions concerning the heights of some products: Cake-Slices: – PFX13FR-30-2 and SE170 (although its 30mm it seems to be very low) – PFX15FR-R and PFX15FR-V (same issue here) – TB439 (I am not sure if it explodes that low) Single Shots: – RA141013 and PFX30CM-CH (same issue about the height here) And then two last question about the gold strobing willows. There are three shells (3, 4 and 5 inch) but I think the correct effect should be the JY3-0211-GSW. The JY4-0217 and JY5-0378-GSW they look more like Ti-willows. Is that correct? Is it correct, that the JY6-0273 is more a silver crown than a glittering willow? Sorry for the long list, Perfectionism takes over 😀 Thank you in advance! No problem, I appreciate the help.  I have updated the catalog, but will answer the questions here so you know what to expect: 1) The PFX13FR-30-2, SE170, PFX15FR-R, PFX15FR-V, TB439 heights have been adjusted to be more realistic to performance. 2) The PFX30CM-CH and RA141013 slightly underperform expectations so their sims are accurate for their heights. 3)  The JY6-0273, you are correct, looked more like a Silver Crown than a Silver Glittering Willow and that has been corrected. 4)  The sims for JY4-0217 and JY5-0378-GSW have been corrected. If you sync with the network the changes will be reflected.