The Show Settings panel.

The information on the Show Settings panel is divided into three main areas: information about the show, settings for the scripting environment and default prefire times.

Show Settings
The set of form fields in the Show Settings group are mostly self explanatory.  The Show Name field is required and will be displayed in the title bar of the main window when the show is loaded.  This is also the name that will appear in the report headers and also the Show Manager listing.

The Shoot Site, Designed By, Fired By and Notes fields are all optional.  This information is displayed on printed reports and also on the show summary area of the Show Manager when browsing shows.

The three date fields are also optional and displayed on reports and the show summary of the Show Manager.  The Show Date is the date the show will actually be fired, while the Check-out date represents the date all material will be removed from inventory.  The check-in date represents the date that mortars and racks will be returned to inventory.  The check-in and check-out dates are used by the Inventory Alert panel when checking for product and rack shortages.  Incorrect dates in these two fields can cause false alarms when checking for inventory alerts, but can otherwise be left in their default state if you do not use the inventory alert feature.

Module Count
By setting the module count to the actual number of modules available in the show, you can prevent the show from growing beyond its module capacity limitation.

Cues per Module
The number of cues supported by your modules can be entered here to insure that the cue numbering will not exceed your hardware capacity.  The cues per module setting will also control the number of switches shown on the manual firing panel.  This field is not optional and can not be set to zero.

Default Units
This field is used to control weather English units (inches and pounds) or metric units (millimeters and grams) are used on the various screens within ShowSim.  In many cases both English and Metric units are shown together, but where space does not permit this then the default unit specified here will be used.

Cue Numbering
This setting effects the cue naming convention used throughout ShowSim.  There are currently two options at the time of this writing, but more are likely to be added in the future.

            Alpha-Numeric - this convention uses a letter for the module and a number for the cue on that module, such as A-1 for the first cue on module A.  In cases where more than 26 modules are used, the module name will be followed by a number, such as A1-1.   Z1 would represent the 26th module, A2 the 27th, B2 the 28th etc.

            Numeric-Numeric - this format uses a number for both the module and the cues, with the numbers starting at 1 for the first module and cue.

            PyroDigital Hex - this cue numbering system is exclusive to PyroDigital firing systems and is supported here for those who are used to working with it.  The module is represented by a two digit hex number and can range from 00 to FF, while the cue number is a single digit hex number that can range from 0 to F.  Note that module count and cues per module are auto-set and locked to 256 and 16 respectively when this mode is selected.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack field is where you specify the file name of the music your show will be fired to.  The file used here must be either a mono or stereo “wave” file having the .wav file extension.  Other file formats such as .mp3 must be converted to a .wav file using a converter utility prior to use with ShowSim.

Typically you will create one large .wav file by editing together music from several separate song files before even starting to create your show.  This can be done with one of several sound editors on the market, such as Cool Edit.

If you store your .wav files in the Soundtrack directory under your ShowSim install directory, then you need only type the file name in this field to specify it.  Otherwise you can use the Find button to locate the music file anywhere on your hard drive.

Default Prefire Times
This array of number fields represents the default prefire times that will be used when creating a show without using inventory stock.  You can enter custom values manually into these fields, or you can select from one of several manufacturers in the Preset list to auto-set all the prefire times to those given by the manufacturer.

When adding effects on each cue of your show, these prefire times will be auto-set for each effect except in the case where you are using effects from your inventory database.  Each effect item in an inventory database is assigned a specific prefire time, typically one that the show designer measures directly from firing the real product.  When building shows from inventory, the custom prefire time will be used rather than the default prefire times given here.  It is also possible to override the default prefire time on any given effect once it is in your show.  Thus fine tuning special items can be done regardless of the prefire settings given here or in the inventory items.

These default prefire times are mainly used as a time-saving convenience when scripting non-musical shows where exact timing is not necessary.

Skyline Image
This field specifies a background image to be used with your display simulations for added realism. Images of your actual shoot site can be taken with a digital camera, then resized and trimmed using a graphics editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. Images of type .jpg (JPEG), .bmp (Bitmap) and .gif (GIFF) can be used as background images for added realism. ShowSim can resize the image for you, but it is important to chop your image to the minimum height necessary in order to improve the simulation speed, since the image will have to redraw on each frame update during simulation. The bigger the image is, the more processing time it takes to re-draw it in each animation frame.

Images are uploaded into your show by clicking the SET button, which will bring up the Image Scaler panel shown below. Use the Find button on this panel to locate the desired image on disk and load it into the viewer. Several stock images are available in the Background Image directory under the directory where ShowSim is installed.

The Image Scaler panel.

Viewing Distance
It is important to assign a viewing distance to your image, which represents how far the structure in the image will be located from the audience viewing the show. The use of a viewing distance on images allows you to fire effects both in front of images as well as behind them. For example, you may have a hotel as the backdrop of your show, with close proximity effects fired in front of the hotel and all the shells fired from behind it. By setting the image at 2000 feet, then the close proximity effects at 1500 and the mortars at 2500 feet, the rising tails of comets and mortars fired from behind the building will be properly obstructed by the building for added realism.

Image Scaling
The image will need to be scaled so that it looks the right size given the viewing distance that you specified. You can either manually specify a scale value or you can use the scale estimator to help get the image to appear the right size relative to the viewing distance you specify. To specify your own scale values, check the Manual Override box and type in your own value. Using a scale value of 1.0 will render the image in the original size as stored on disk. Values greater than 1.0 will make the image larger, while values less than 1.0 will make it smaller. Clicking the Test button will draw your image on the simulator screen so you can see how it will look based on the current scale value.

Auto-scaling
This feature attempts to choose a scale value for you based on the viewing distance and a reference line that you draw on the image. The first step is to use the mouse to click and drag a line over the image between two points of a known distance apart. For the hotel example, you could drag a line from the ground to the top of the hotel if you know how tall the hotel is (as a general rule, each floor in a typical building is usually 10 or 12 feet height). Reference lines can be vertical, horizontal or any angle you choose. The important thing is to know the real-life distance between the end points of the line.

Once the line is drawn, simply enter the known distance into the Reference Height field using the selected units (feet or meters). The scale will automatically be calculated when you enter height values, as long as the manual override checkbox is not checked.

The Test button can then be used to check the size that the image will be drawn, which will cause it to appear at the bottom of the main simulator screen. The scaling calculation used here is actually a bit amplified over what a pure theoretical projection would produce. This is because a person standing at a certain distance from a fireworks show has a much larger field of vision than if he were to view the show through a framed “port hole,” which is what a computer based simulation is forced to do.

If you have ever attempted to video tape a fireworks show, then you know that the viewer must move a substantial distance away from the show in order to fit everything into the video frame without constantly moving the camera up and down. If ShowSim employed a true projection to represent the image and shell heights, then the shows would have to be very far away in order to fit on your screen. In order to allow your shows to appear more the way a human standing on the ground would see them, some vertical compression is employed.

Pixel Measurement
The auto-scaler must know how many screen pixels fit into a known distance in order to perform the scaling calculations correctly. Pixels are the tiny dots that are used to render graphics on your monitor, and different monitors have different sized pixels. Thus it is necessary for you to take a measurement from your computer screen, the full height of the image placement rectangle in this case, before using the auto-scaler feature. This measurement only needs to be done once, as it is saved in your system settings. The first time you open the Image Scaler screen you will be prompted to make this measurement and enter the value in the appropriate units (inches or mm, depending on your unit selection). You can also click the Measure Pixels button at any time to update this setting.