FWSim wishlist (with implemented features)

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

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

Happily_Ever_After-May_16,2017(34585800621)_(cropped)
Happily_Ever_After-May_16,2017(34585800621)_(cropped)1920Ă—1229 197 KB

As well as some FLAME JETS and SPARKULARS.

images (1)
images (1)739Ă—415 56.2 KB

images (2)

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

And lastly, some Cartesian and Azimuth Slices peonies.
ghost_blue_to_4colors

quarter_peony
quarter_peony864Ă—737 49.2 KB

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

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Thank you Lukas for taking some of these into consideration.

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

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Hi Everybody,

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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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:

image

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.

image

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.

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@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
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