Thanks for reporting back on the status Will, I really appreciate that.  Do you have any suggestions on how I can implement some work around for this problem.  Do I have to manually assign addresses to 120 effects across 20 firing positions or is there something more convenient to make this work.  Right now our show consists of 5x 36M, 8x 72M and 10x 18M.  The 18M’s need to use the 6s Rails but we are already using a custom csv for our other firing system with a custom module.

Thank you DrewFinale – that worked very well. Good VDL advice and some some pyro manufacturing background!   I’ve noticed that using popcorn crackling gives me a secondary break and hence a sound node when I look in the effect editor.  Something like “intense crackling” doesn’t act as a break and hence I get no sound. Is this intentional?    

Hey Barehm, that’s a really nice cake. In this case, I would use the VDL term Waterfall or Horsetail instead of Falling Leaves. Both are soft broken effects but the difference is that Falling Leaves are made by coating lightweight sheets of substrate with pyrotechnic composition whereas a Waterfall or Horsetail bursts contain traditional rolled or pumped stars. I think it’s a good bet the actual construction of this cake uses stars and I think you can get a better result with a VDL terms that uses stars as well.

Hi Neil, Thanks for taking the time to reply. I get what’s causing it, more specifically it’s finale’s understanding of fountain vs gerb. But my point is, at least with all the pro suppliers we’ve ever used, the time it’s described as is the time the effect finishes. Using 3s Jet instead of a 3s fountain is much more accurate, with the downside that it doesn’t burn down to the ground. I’m guessing that’s why it appears most of the sims built in catalogues use gerbs for their fountains as well.

Derrick, it does make sense to support multiple custom modules.  When we first implemented the addressing system, we didn’t realize how useful (and necessary) custom modules would be.  The use case driving our thinking at the time was Pyrodigital users who wanted custom modules with 15 pins instead of 16 to match their racks better.  Virtual slats and other capabilities were added later, increasing the number of use cases demanding custom modules.   We will add support for multiple custom modules sometime after we finish the new rack capabilities we are working on and 3D rack diagrams, so you won’t have to wait forever, but it’s more than a quarter of development time from now.

Hi Pyro_7100000,   You’re correct that you can only create fountains that are gold or silver through VDL currently. However, I think the 6s fountain you’re seeing is actually a 3s fountain even though the timeline indicator shows the overall effect being closer to 6 seconds in duration. The reason is because the timeline indicator is also showing the fade out/wind down part of the effect, when sparks are still visible and falling but are no longer being emitted by the fountain.   If you look closely, you’ll notice that the sparks stop at 3 seconds. The rest of the timeline indicator is just there so you know that the effect isn’t truly “finished” yet, despite no more particles being emitted.  

I was building a consumer cake from Sunwing that had some falling leaves effects I can’t replicate well.  The first one appears to be two shots that do white falling leaves with a strobing effect. The other is a falling leaves pattern that explodes into intense crackling.  I can’t seem to get the falling leaves effects to work with a ‘to’ directive that would work. Does anyone have advice?   -Brett  

I’m trying to create a fountain using: 40mm 15.0m 3.00s Blue Fountain   But what it creates is a 6 second silver fountain. I’m guessing at the moment fountains can only be silver or gold? but why doesn’t the time match?

And, yes, I know I could use various filters and set hazard info in the script window but that leaves the possibility open to forget to re-re-re-check everything is set if the script undergoes lots of edits.

Is there a way to set an entire position and/or rack cluster to a hazard group ?   example 1: a position dedicated to salutes, everything that got put in that position would be part of a hazard definition / disable group automatically   example 2: a specific rack cluster with effects that could “touch down” that may need to be excluded based on site conditions/wind