FWSim wishlist (with implemented features)

[Mangmod]

Last year I made a list of some things I would like to see implemented in FWSim that would be useful to improve the software for both enthusiasts and professionals.
I wanted to open this thread to share my ideas and suggestions with you and I would like to keep it updated with the progress of the list. There are already some great features implemented that I consider to be game-changing!

EDIT: I have renamed the topic so that it can accommodate all the other requests. I will add them below.

I will break these down into categories and an order of personal priority. Maybe some of these will coincide with the developers’ internal list, who knows?
I invite you to comment by saying what would be your top priorities on this list, so I can update it with “votes” and potentially help the development (even if I am pretty sure Lukas and the team already are working on some of these!)

Visuals

• Field of View slider (per camera) - to emulate camera lenses with a wider or narrower field of view
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Support for 60FPS, 120FPS and so on [FWSim 3.5, in XML file]
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Linear camera movement
• Orbital camera movement (rotate around a point)
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Glow control [FWSim 3.5]
• HDR Support - Now, this might be a bit hard
• Virtual Reality (VR) support or export - View your fireworks shows as if you were there via a VR visor.

Firework Design

• Realistic smoke effect - a major overhaul may be needed. I wish I could really provide help with this.
• Slider for height inaccuracy
• Additional Distribution shape: Cylinder - very common in small shells, used for consumer cakes and smaller shells in general. It may look more like a stack of parallel rings rather than a sphere: stars are arranged in a way that they eject angled to the explosion point. It would have as parameters: {Layers - how many “rings/levels/stacks”} {Stars - the total number of stars of the shell}.
• Non-Inherit velocity toggle for SoS - a way to disable the shell of shells to inherit the vector of the main explosion (basically no more elongated peonies on subshell)
• Vertical shell of shells vectoring
• Custom star types (size + drag/gravity factor)
• Additional Distribution shape: Clusters/Stained Glass/Happozaki - This is doable with crossettes or multiple copies of the same star set, with their position randomness edited for every instance. It works, but it’s imprecise and tedious. This distribution shape would have the following parameters: {stars per cluster} {clusters amount} {cluster spread (degrees)}
• Shell deformation factor/quashed sphere - to simulate the imperfection when the shell goes off and doesn’t look like a perfect circle
• Shell of shells explosion maximum delay time - useful to determine if all the sub-shells explode at the same time or if there is a randomness of detonation of the single subshells
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Multiple colour changes [FWSim 3.5 - up to 4 different colours]
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Strobe timeline [FWSim 3.5 - using the Phase feature]
• Improved colour picker, independent from the OS one - which has a very limited set of colours you can save
• Ghost Shell implementation - Well, we all want this. EDIT: I had some thoughts for the development. What about using “shaders” on a star-type layer? Shaders would change the colour depending on some patterns, which, in our case, could be exactly the ones for ghost shells. Each pattern can contain multiple colour slots and the ideal would be that they can be scripted either with an internal tool or externally. The same Shader technique would also allow for the easiness of the cartesian and azimuth slice sphere, the difference being its evolution. Furthermore, a shader should not be limited by the shape, but be autonomous so it can be used on every shape.
• Motorized Stars implementation - Rework of whistles, tourbillons, farfalle and the addition of new effects like swarmers, bees, go-getters and many more which are nowadays very common in many firework shows.
• [IMPLEMENTED!] Stars instability [FWSim 3.5 - you can see this, especially on the Xlarge stars], meaning the dimming and brightening of stars as they burn
• Full Axis Rotation controls - to allow the editing not just of one axis, but of all three of them.
• Additional Distribution Shape: Cartesian Sphere. Parameters {Stars} {Segments} {Phase per Segment}
• Additional Distribution Shape: Azimuth Slice Sphere. Parameters: {Stars} {Segments} {Phase per Segment}

Show Editor

• Undo for basic and creative editions. The frustration is incredibly big when you delete a part of your show by accident and cannot undo the mistake.
• Spline editor for Fronts. This allows the creation of curved paths and also circular ones (Easy to make the stadium top fireworks with this feature! It should also work on the vertical axis, for example linking effects on places such as Ferris wheels (London Eye)
• Drag and Manipulate - [Partially implemented] Take an effect from the inventory (always open window) and drag it directly in the 3D viewport, adding the cue to the current time. This is half implemented as you can do so with single fireworks and steppers by dragging the effect in the 3D viewport and also angle it individually. It would be nice to have a “snapping” by holding ALT or another modifier key when using the right mouse to rotate it by increments of 5 degrees.

Audio

• Custom audio pool - An ability to choose “presets” for audio effects. A “list” system which allows you to replace the current sounds with custom ones, so you can use more realistic sounds or also meme sounds (such as air horn when firing whistles, because yes)
• Speed of sound - Sound is delayed depending on the position of the camera, according to the speed of sound.

Generic

• New effect type: Fireball
• New effect type: Fire Jet
• New effect type: Sparkular [Partially available with the “Eruption” feature]
• New effect type: searchlight

[genenj]

Fireballs. We need to simulate fireballs for our shows as we use them at almost every show.

fireballs

[HarmonyStarFireworks]

And we didn’t forget… some PROJECTIONS on buildings and SEARCHLIGHTS!

As well as some FLAME JETS and SPARKULARS.

@Mangmod

Ghost Shell implementation - Well, we all want this.

And even as 3D effects, of course. Take a look in the example below:

8" Inch 3D Ghost Shells #yungfengdisplayshells #永丰8寸 3D牡丹

And lastly, some Cartesian and Azimuth Slices peonies.

[Lukas]

Thanks for compiling that list and sharing it with us. I will be following the discussion!

[Mangmod]

Thank you Lukas for taking some of these into consideration.

[HarmonyStarFireworks]

You’re always welcome, Lukas! Hope these requests are green lit!

[AlexLeo]

Hi Everybody,

The possibility of creating rounded or curved firing axes could also be good

[Mangmod]

Hello, for this you mean placing the fireworks on a curved or circular front?

[AlexLeo]

yes, why not ? It could be interesting, like at London Eye

[Mangmod]

Indeed. I will add your proposal to the “Spline” editor for Fronts, adding the verticality in particular. Thank you for providing an example

[HarmonyStarFireworks]

@Mangmod

• Additional Distribution Shape: Cartesian Sphere. Parameters {Stars} {Segments} {Phase per Segment}
• Additional Distribution Shape: Azimuth Slice Sphere. Parameters: {Stars} {Segments} {Phase per Segment}

@Mangmod

• New effect type: Fireball
• New effect type: searchlight

Thanks for adding my request! But you forget adding flame jets and SPARKULARS as well.

[Mangmod]

Added to the list. For sparkulars though I added a “partially available” comment since you can try to simulate them by using a fountain eruption effect, even if it’s not as precise as what you mean.

[HarmonyStarFireworks]

Thanks, Mangmod! I hope Lukas will work on that!

[baalduru]

About the slider for height inaccuracy. I would suggest adding an individual slider for randomness to both velocity and burst timing. I agree with a cylinder shape for cannister shells and the custom star types. Having control over size, drag and gravity would make it easy to do things like gerbs and other fountain-effects. You would also be able to make falling leaves in different sizes. Especially with the new glow, that looks much better, but also make the stars appear bigger, I could really use an option to reduce their size.

Concerning the improved colour picker. I would like if you could make nameable colour swatches and save them to different libraries. I use different shades of metallic colours for tails, and I have to use a spread sheet to keep track of them and manually input the RGB colours every time. Often using 6+ custom tails this becomes very tedious to do every time.

I would also like to see an update to the cake editor. I would suggest dividing it into firing shapes and firing patterns. The firing shapes would have:

• I-Shape
• F-Shape
• Z-Shape
• V-Shape
• W-Shape

I realize that Z- and F-shapes are basically the same, but if you include both and utilize the current part-system (where you can divide cakes up into different parts) you could automatically put the firing pattern into the metadata. So, a cake could be described as IFW in the metadata.
The firing pattern would contain:

• Normal
• Mirror from outside
• Mirror from inside
• Shifted mirror from outside
• Shifted mirror from inside

Exactly like the stepper has. Combined with the angle, times, and sweeps you should have every possible pattern available quick and easy.
I would also like to include an angle variation to the Simulated Inaccuracies. And an option for ensuring that one part of a cake can never start before the previous have finished. And if possible, options for reverse fusing and double fusing.
In addition, I would like more metadata in the effect-files that can be used for filtering in the database. So, you might have something that look like this:

You would then be able to filter for any or all of these in the database. It might be interesting if this could be done in the online database as well.
I would also suggest implementing a colour change over time for sparks. It is much easier to make realistic tails, using something like this, than using the multiple tails system.

You could do the same for stars and roll the colour change and change brightness over time into one tool. I would also like to have the option to add spin and rotation to stars and tails. This would make it possible to build our own tourbillions, farfalles, humming snakes, spinners, and so on. The problem with the current ones is that I can’t adjust anything. There is a big difference between a tourbillion in a 6 inch shell and a silver swirl ariel in a 20mm cake.

Lastly, I would like to see an option for moving items up and down on the positions list, so it gets easier to organize. I use many firing lines that are not straight lines and the only way to do this is with points. This means my position list gets very long and in order to keep it organized I have to make sure that I set it up in the correct order. Being able to move items around would be much easier. But I would prefer if the firing lines came in different shapes. So, even if the firing line is a circle or curve, you could still use the stepper function.

[Mangmod]

@baalduru thank you so much for the detailed post!
It seems I cannot edit the main post so I will add the points here, hopefully, I listed all of them:

Firework Design

• Colour Gradient for tails
• Change brightness over time for tails
• Add Rotation and Spin to tails (for custom tourbillons and motor stars)
• New firing shapes/patterns for cake (I, F, Z, V, W shapes)
• Angle variation inaccuracy on cake editor
• “Start part only if the previous one is finished” option for cake editor
• Cake reverse fusing
• Cake double fusing
• Additional Metadata

Show Editor

• Movement of fronts in the list

Generic

• Colour Libraries

[Mangmod]

I am writing again on this list after some time to recap on possible solutions/alternatives to issues and add new suggestions.

** Added to FWSim from last time **

• Add rotation and spin to tails - Added to the ascent stars and tails for a shell. Might be fully added in the future to all star tails (speculation)
• Added new cake shapes! V, X, and simultaneous, plus sub-options
• Pause option added to cake editor

External solutions:

• HDR Support - It is possible to make a FWSim HDR video by exporting (possibly in the best quality), and then using software like the free EncodeGUI or other software such as After Effects. In the latter case, you need to set up an adjustment layer with an HDR compander and tweak it. However, the most important step is to render out in H.265 with the 10-bit colour option and ensure the HDR metadata are in. In the future, I might make a paper about how to do this in detail.

• Ghost Shells - This Japanese FWsim user has made a spreadsheet tool which can output directly on a file the ghost shell. WARNING: It’s in Japanese and could require Locale to work. I do not have Excel and with LibreOffice, it does not work, so I gave up, but you might have luck and make it work. x.com

• Motorized Stars - Albeit this function may potentially be coming soon, there are some workarounds to make motor mines by making a cake and exploiting the shell rotation feature to create the effect. Another effect is by using the shell of shells as if it was the main effect, and then each subshell is a single star one, which should have the same size of the parent.

Added requests

• Shell Angle Spread (min/max angle) - Option to simulate the shell’s deviation from the intended course. This occurs naturally once the shell exits the mortar and would give a lot of realism to the shots. While a “global” variable would certainly work, I’m more akin to suggest a per-firework setting, as depending on the manufacturer, some might be more inaccurate than others.

• Option to disable crackle sound effect on popping flowers - As controversial as it sounds (no pun intended), disabling this can help get some interesting effects that you can only get with the new updated popping flowers option.

• Advanced firework options panel - Worried that the many options can put people away from the software? No problem, add a checkbox which, when triggered, switches from the default advanced options from the manual control of them. These are meant to be the settings which would be normally controlled by a global variable. Just to make a summary of them, they would be:

[Shell-related]

• Shell Height (minimum and maximum) - Useful for professionals as this could help in getting an idea for the client as the potential outcome of a show - and to help decide whether to use the 200mm peony beast or not depending by how accurate the lifting charge amount is!
• Wind friction - Alters the trajectory of the shell. Below are two pictures of zero and 20% wind friction. There should already be a parameter like this in FWsim, but could be a global variable.
  
  
• Shell Angle Spread - mentioned above.
• Shell Deformation (set a percentage which could be spread into X, Y and Z axes)
• Shell Shape: JSON/XML/Code - a way for experts to craft their shapes, allowing for previously impossible configurations of the shell.
• Shell Velocity Inheritance - Detailed explanation here: [Feature request] Non-Inherit velocity toggle for SoS

[Star-related]

• Custom star sizes (approximate star mm diameter, plus variation between them)
• Wind friction (percentage, min/max) - this affects the “acceleration” of the stars. A high value of wind friction will create the effect where the stars reach their maximum distance fast and then they will almost look like they stop abruptly. A low wind friction would make the stars tend to fall almost immediately. I think by default the value would be around 25-30%. Want to make a willow or kamuro-type effect? Tune down this parameter. Want to make the fast, large peonies used in some finale sections? Turn this up to the maximum.

[HarmonyStarFireworks]

@Mangmod

Added new cake shapes! V, X, and simultaneous, plus sub-options

You forgot to add something like this (circular shape): https://youtube.com/shorts/ivD1L7VkOyU?feature=shared

@Mangmod

Ghost Shells - This Japanese FWsim user has made a spreadsheet tool which can output directly on a file the ghost shell.

Don’t forget with 3D disco effects, which it will be even better. And, of course, I am waiting for swimming/moving stars effect.

@Mangmod

Option to disable crackle sound effect on popping flowers - As controversial as it sounds (no pun intended)

That it will be a good idea to make some realistic “Plum” effect!

@Mangmod

Shell Velocity Inheritance

The following pictures will clarify it:

@Mangmod

Shell Shape: JSON/XML/Code - a way for experts to craft their shapes, allowing for previously impossible configurations of the shell.

Don’t forget the quarter peony!

In the External solutions, I am requesting to make a howling wolves, hummers, and sirens:

Silver tails

1500 SHOTS HOWLING TO COLORFUL FIREWORKS CAKE ALL AT ONCE !!

Colored howling wolf (without tails)

Red Howling Wolf Fireworks Cake #merrytimefireworks #fireworks2024

Single shots from RICASA
Hummers

Single Shot - Hummers Mine 44 mm - RICASA - Ricardo Caballer

Sirens (0:50)

Single Shot Effects Mines 60mm - Ricasa Fireworks

[Mangmod]

Thanks for the reply, there are quite some things in these videos! For shell non-inheritance, here’s a comparison which would show exactly the reason I am requesting that feature. (Note: used Finale to get these pictures as it has a slider for velocity inheritance)

Zero velocity inheritance:

100% velocity inheritance:

As you can see here, FWsim uses the 100% version which is good when you want to make a horsetail shell of shells, but not when your goal is a generic shell of shells.

This is the attempt at doing a similar mosaic - with realistic sizes - but in FWSim.

As for the external solutions, I think there is no way of achieving that. We need to wait for an official update. It might take time, but I’m sure we’ll get it sometime.

[nickdevore]

My 15 yr old son loves this program. He’s on the autism spectrum and really enjoys the ability to create a fireworks show. His biggest request is to be able to change the sounds the fireworks make. So this post had a “Sound Pool” enhancement. That would be my top vote. Thanks for making such a great program that allows so many customizations to the fireworks. Great job!

[Lukas]

Hi Nick,

thanks for your suggestions! Good to hear your son likes FWsim.

Lukas