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:
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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.
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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. Post / X
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.