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!
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.
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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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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
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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
-
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.
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You forgot to add something like this (circular shape): https://youtube.com/shorts/ivD1L7VkOyU?feature=shared
Don’t forget with 3D disco effects, which it will be even better. And, of course, I am waiting for swimming/moving stars effect.
That it will be a good idea to make some realistic “Plum” effect!
The following pictures will clarify it:
Don’t forget the quarter peony!
In the External solutions, I am requesting to make a howling wolves, hummers, and sirens:
Silver tails
Colored howling wolf (without tails)
Single shots from RICASA
Hummers
Sirens (0:50)
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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.
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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!
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Hi Nick,
thanks for your suggestions! Good to hear your son likes FWsim.
Lukas
I would like to be able to move cues (either single or multiple depending on selection) to another track but keep locked in to current time. I was thinking if you hold shift or ctrl down while dragging vertically to tracks could by an easy way to implement.
This would be for “organizational” purposes only but helps with show design.
I didn’t see this anywhere for request or a way to do this in the current V4 release.
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In addition to the above request, it would be very nice to be able to lock in a track. Without the undo feature in creative I accidentally move things around that I have dialed in. It would be nice to get undo, but I would settle for a lock track from editing to prevent accidental moving of cues when I have them where I want them.
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I would like the ability to select the color in the timeline to more easily identify the product colors. 
like this:
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This would be amazing to have!
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