The shell designer interface is divided into four groups of settings: shell parameters, break parameters, insert parameters and star parameters. These settings combine to allow a large variety of effects to be created, including multiple break shells, shells with a variety of rising tail effects, shells that eject other shells as inserts and color changing stars of up to 3 effects.  There are also a large variety of patterns and break styles to choose from as well.

When working in the Shell Editor, you are building an effect in one specific size that is fired to a specified height.  However, once the effect is created then it can be used in your shows at any size desired and ShowSim will scale the lift and break parameters accordingly. It is usually best to design the effect at the size it will most commonly be used in order to minimize anomalies that can occur from excessive scaling. For example, if you are making a titanium salute, a 3" size would be a good size to model it in. For shells, a 6" size is a good mid-range choice.

Shell Parameters
The shell parameters at the top of the panel are used to control basic characteristics of the overall effect. Each field in this panel is described below. Refer to the screen shot above to see where the various data fields are located.

Effect Name- enter the name for the effect you are creating in this field. This name will be used to reference this effect in various effect lists that appear in ShowSim, so try to use an accurate name. The  naming convention used throughout the Standard library is a good format to follow, since it uses a consistent prefix for the effect type, followed by specific details.  Since all these effects can be scaled, it is important not to include a size value as part of the effect name, otherwise it could create some confusing when the name appears in a show.

Category- each effect must be stored under one of the pre-defined categories found in this list. Choose the category that most appropriately fits your effect type.

Shell Size- this value specifies the mortar diameter that the effect is to be fired from, which is the reference point used when scaling the shell. It doesn't affect performance when modeling the shell, but it does play an important role when the shell is scaled. The Break Size parameter next to the Break List is what determines the actual size of shell bursts, although these two parameters will usually have the same size value.

The reason the Burst Size parameter is separate from the Shell Size parameter is to allow the creation of shells that break harder than a normal shell of a given size.  For example, you could make a 5” shell that breaks like an 8” shell by specifying 5” as the Shell Size and then 8” as the Burst Size.  Likewise you could also create large shells with weak bursts, as is necessary when making soft breaking effects like sky mines, go getters etc.

Fixed Size Effect- when this checkbox is checked, the simulator will not be allowed to scale this effect to sizes other than the one it was designed as. This is provided as a way to enforce an exact set of parameters for a shell that can only be used in one size. When creating fixed size effects, you should include the shell size in the effect name so that you will know it is a fixed size.

Rising Tail- this option allows you to choose one of many streamer effects to use as a rising tail on your shells. Having no visible tail at all is also an option.

Color Head- this option allows you to specify a color comet as a rising effect on your shells or comets. Using this option in combination with the Rising Tail setting can make attractive rising effects.

Lift Height- this is a value specified in feet that indicates the height where the zenith of the shells trajectory will occur. Normally you would just check the auto-calculate checkbox so that this value can be calculated based on average lift heights given the prefire time. However, there are special cases like sky mines, multi-break shells and other effects that need to break before the shell has reached its peak. If you are modeling an exact set of shell parameters to match your own effects, you can specify this value along with the peak height value to get a more accurate simulation than the auto-calculate feature would provide.

Peak Time- this value indicates the time that it takes the shell to reach the peak height specified above. Together these two parameters combine to control the velocity that the shell is fired at. A shell with a high lift height and short peak time value will fire at a much greater velocity than one with a low lift height and high peak time. Obviously you can create combinations that would not be possible in real life, but the point is to be able to use real-world shell parameters to create an accurate model.

In most cases you would check the option to make the peak time equal to the prefire time, which is the time delay on the first break. This results in a shell that breaks just at the zenith of its flight. In the case of multi-breaks, which break both on the way up and on the way down, the peak time will usually occur at some point after the first break but before the last break. Custom peak times are the key to getting multi-break shells to model correctly.

Note that when the shell is used in a show, the lift time is auto-calculated based on the prefire time specified for the shell.  The lift will be such that the shell will reach the peak height after the prefire time has elapsed.  The lift value specified here is only used when test firing the shell, but not when it is used in a show.

Break Parameters
Each shell can have one or more breaks, or no breaks at all if you are just making a comet.  Each break is listed in the Break List and has three parameters that need to be set for each one.  When a break is selected from the list, the three settings will change to represent teh selected break.   If your effect has no breaks at all, such as a comet, then you can ignore these settings.

Add- this button will take all the current break settings and use them to create a new break, which is then added to the list.

Delete- this button will delete the currently selected break in the Break List.

Burst Size- this number is what controls the speed and distance the stars will travel when the shell bursts, and is specified as a shell diameter. While this number usually matches the Shell Size parameter, there are cases where you may want it to be larger or smaller than the shell size. For example, if you wanted to simulate a 6" spider shell (a hard breaking charcoal effect with a large span), you could specify a 12" break size and then drop the Hang Time parameter for the component stars down to 70%. This would then give you a break with the span of a 6" shell but with a hard breaking appearance that creates straight and fast star trajectories. You can similarly "under break" a shell by specifying an under sized break and then increasing the duration of the stars.

Time Delay- this number represents the burn time of a time fuse on the break, which would be the time delay from when the shell was fired to when it breaks. In the case of multi break shells, it would be the time delay between the previous break and the selected break. All time delays for multi-breaks are measured between breaks and not from the time of lift. Only the time delay on the first break of a multi-break shell is measured from the point when the shell fired.

Shell Type- this is a list of effect templates for common effect patterns. Choosing an item from this list will reset the star configuration for the selected break, so be sure to set this parameter first before setting up the stars and inserts.

Star Configuration
Once your break parameters are set, you can further define details about the stars that will be used in the break.

Star Type- this is a list of star types that will vary depending on the Shell Type parameter. For example, a crossing ring ball shell will have a star type for each ring. A double petal ball shell will have a star type for both the inner and outer petal. Each star type represents a group of stars that will all have the same effect.  In the case of a 4 color shell, you would have one star type for each color.  When you select a star type from the list, the three effect groups that are used to define a star will update to reflect the settings of the selected type.

Custom Pattern- this option lets you select from a list of custom star patterns that you can create yourself. When “” is selected, the default star pattern for the selected shell will be used. If one of the existing patterns is chosen, it will override the default pattern with the custom pattern. Clicking the Edit button will bring up the custom pattern editor, where you can modify existing patterns or create new ones. See the next section for more information about working with star patterns.

Each star can have one to three layers of effects, which are arranged into three groups of five parameters.  The First Effect group will be the first to ignite, so that would be the initial star effect seen when the shell breaks.  The second and third effects represent inner layers of an effect changing star.

Color- this parameter controls the color of the star, with the option of having no color. Choosing "assorted" from the list will create a star that is a random color each time.   The random color will be determined by the simulator at the time when the shell actually breaks.

Effect- this parameter allows you to select special effects, such as strobing or bright mag color. The difference between Strobe and Crackle is the way in which the effect terminates. Strobes will gradually stop strobing, whereas crackle stars all stop at once.

Tail- this parameter controls the length and color of the streamer tail left behind the color head of the star. Note that the longer a streamer tail is, the more computer resources it takes to generate the effect. This is why a bunch of long streamer effects fired at once can appear jumpy if your processor speed or graphics card is not fast enough to keep up.