Finale3D - FWsim comparison?

[PyroFL]

I am looking to purchase one of the sim firework programs and looking to get some feed back from others that have used one or both.

Personally I like both software’s, both have pluses and minuses to them.

Normally we only do one show per year on the fourth and I will not be using it as a marketing tool or to build concept for clients.

The graphics quality doesn’t have to be perfect to me as am just building as a concept and overall look and feel for our private show.

No one but 2 guys on our team will ever see the quality of the effects and I will not be hosting a fourth party to watch on the big screen if we have a rain out.

I am on the fence for both of them and feel I maybe missing something. Hoping to get some feedback from all you pyros out there.


- What program are you using?

- Did you use it for a show?

- How did you feel about the cake build and how long did it take on average per cake?

- What learning curve did you have to overcome, was it the software or personal knowledge?

- Why would you recommend and why not?

[displayfireworks1]

There are pyrotalk forums members on here that are using multiple pyro software programs. As we are in the slow pyro time of year give it a little time to allow other forums members to respond with an opinion on the available programs. Some of these software program developers are advertisers on pyrotalk but please state your honest opinion for those that respond.
On a side note I am personally enjoying living through a time when only a few people at a professional display company used and/or understood computerized pyrotechnic hardware and software to current users/developers that are now bringing this affordable hardware and software to a backyard fireworks display user. Thanks to advancing affordable technology and thanks to those innovators in the industry that bring it to us. The product supply end of this is now producing products (AP Pro Products) to accommodate the advanced user, ie E-Match ports , non regulated Initiators , quick plug Initiators, affordable pyro software programs etc. I am trying to add to it by getting the industry to recognize the advanced pyro enthuist to access/purchase the products we need to enjoy this advanced affordable technology. The advanced pyro enthusiast is now more like a display company creating and presenting a fireworks display , then we were like our historic roots of making fireworks.

[PyroFL]

Couldn't agree more Dave!

I've been watching both companies for a few years and I don't shoot 1.3 I've been waiting for AP product to show up in the list.

The answer I had gotten for the past 3 years was I could just build my own which was true but I really don't have time with working 70-90+ hours per week.

With just CSC am cutting it close each year to start our build and wouldn't have the extra time to build each cake or effect after I get my order.

When I spoke to Drew a few months back he told me he was about to start looking for someone to build 1.4PRO items, then a few weeks later he had the contest to win a job. I was emailing with Drew this week and he said the new person was about to start, so we will see where it goes from here.

Lukas also has a great product and the user interface I find to be very user friendly as Finale3D.

Like I said in my first post I like both, but would tell you if I could find someone to help out or even pay to build cakes for one of them that is the one I would pick.

My thought at the moment is to use FWsim to build a baseline/model for my single shot racks, slices and effects for $45 per month for 2-3 months. Then upload to CSC and fill in with cakes rather than paying $349 to Finale3D which I also really like but I could save $214 which would be 2 more cases of product. If either had an extensive 1.4PRO product list I would pick that one right away.

That said, I am looking forward to hearing feedback from other pyros incase am missing something or overlooked a few functions that would change my mind.

I am not sold on one or the other at the moment and my hope is to get some feedback from other pyros.

[Salutecake]

The problem with the software for hobbyists-- The cost to develope compared to the income it can generate and to what market. So just as an example - 1000 to develop sel to customers at 100, and the market is limited to professional firework companies.
To get the hobbyist involed at a lower price range - limit the functions or else the pro's will be buying the cheaper software.

If you look at Finale3D and compare all of the features of the Pro and Hobbyist programs, there are only a few features that are cut out of the Hobbyist program - but there are some key features that the hobbyist would like to have and use. If you go to the compare Finale 3D page for example , expand the racks tab and there is a list of probably 20 features all nice but a few of the key features are x out.

Personally I might be willing to pay the hobbyist price if they included the rack layout, site diagrams and do away with other functions that might not apply to hobbyist.

So I think the hobbyist is going to be stuck with the limited function at a limited price for a while.

[topshelfpyro]

I use finale, a ton of AP products and some standard consumer items are already there in the manufacture catalog download. They have 3 tiers $149, $349, pro. I use the hobbiest since I have DMX items. It's a fantastic piece of software. Would the "missing" features be fun to play with that pro has? Sure they would but that is my choice to not pay for it. I'm just a backyard guy but I'm doing 850+ cue backyard displays and I don't really need the visual rack stuff and other pro features.
2-3 cases of Pyro cost for finale 3d every year is not very much overall considering what I spend on everything else and the convenience and time savings finale 3d affords me.

IMHO the cost "justification" for software like finale 3d depends on what level show your doin in the cue count, cost, etc realm.

FWIW I personally don't care that much if a cake or whatever has a perfect visualization on the screen(I can do that in my head) its a timing slot. But cake creator is fun to play with when I get done with the show and want to see how close I can make the screen effects appear correctly.

[Salutecake]

Hey topselfpyro,

In Finale, what's a couple of Pro features that you would like to have that would make your backyard planning easier?

I know it works for you. Just trying to get a better grip on Finale before I take the plunge.

Peronally for me the one backyard I shoot has 4 positions on land - 5 positions on water and 3 other positions scattered about, and Finale for my situation doesn't seem to handle that. I mean Cobra's thing can handle label and reports and is a lot less expensive.

[PyroFL]

I'm just a backyard guy but I'm doing 850+ cue backyard displays

Just a backyard guy with over 850+ cues. Thats funny and impressive. I'll have 504 cues this year to use and still think I need a few hundred more. Rick in Tampa called me "One of those guys, your a cue guy now" then he just laughed. My thought is the more cues I have the more fire power I have and the more creative I can be. But you Sir are not "Just a backyard guy"



2-3 cases of Pyro cost for finale 3d every year is not very much overall considering what I spend on everything else and the convenience and time savings finale 3d affords me.

IMHO the cost "justification" for software like finale 3d depends on what level show your doin in the cue count, cost, etc realm.

I get it and laugh at myself with over $20,000 gear in my garage and being to cheap to pay $349 to pay for Finale3D. It makes no sense besides am frugal about buying things so I can buy more fireworks. (says the guy with $20K+ of gear he only uses 1 time a gear)

[PyroFL]

Peronally for me the one backyard I shoot has 4 positions on land - 5 positions on water and 3 other positions scattered about, and Finale for my situation doesn't seem to handle that. I mean Cobra's thing can handle label and reports and is a lot less expensive.

That is interesting that you bring that up as I have yet to test this.

When playing around with FWsim, I notice the field is 2,624 feet wide and there is no way to make it smaller at this time until a planned updated down the road at some point I was told. When building my setup for this year I noticed my positions (racks/cakes) are about 30 feet wide and I couldn't tell where everything was as it was all on top of each other even when zooming all the way in which made it hard to work on.

So it sounds like Finale3D has the same problem maybe from what your saying and I will have to email Drew or give him a call today.

I do like that Topshelfpyro says there is a ton of AP items. To me that is a BIG PLUS!

Like yourself my setup maybe will not work. My site where we can safely do it I can't go over 100' wide and is very compacted. It will be interesting to find out if Finale3D can pull it off or not.

6892

[topshelfpyro]

Hey topselfpyro,

In Finale, what's a couple of Pro features that you would like to have that would make your backyard planning easier? The fully custom reports and labels would be cool as well as google maps. Of course the graphical rack layouts and crazy customizable wiring would be fun to play with but decidedly not worth $700 more to me

I know it works for you. Just trying to get a better grip on Finale before I take the plunge. May I suggest giving it a whirl on a free trial, download the manufacture catalogs and go nuts (if you us spirit of 76 they have alot of "fake" simulations in their consumer fireworks as "placeholders"

Peronally for me the one backyard I shoot has 4 positions on land - 5 positions on water and 3 other positions scattered about, and Finale for my situation doesn't seem to handle that. I mean Cobra's thing can handle label and reports and is a lot less expensive. I don't understand why that can't be done in Finale? You can place a position wherever you want to, as far apart as you want to?

[topshelfpyro]

That is interesting that you bring that up as I have yet to test this.

When playing around with FWsim, I notice the field is 2,624 feet wide and there is no way to make it smaller at this time until a planned updated down the road at some point I was told. When building my setup for this year I noticed my positions (racks/cakes) are about 30 feet wide and I couldn't tell where everything was as it was all on top of each other even when zooming all the way in which made it hard to work on.

So it sounds like Finale3D has the same problem maybe from what your saying and I will have to email Drew or give him a call today.

I do like that Topshelfpyro says there is a ton of AP items. To me that is a BIG PLUS!

Like yourself my setup maybe will not work. My site where we can safely do it I can't go over 100' wide and is very compacted. It will be interesting to find out if Finale3D can pull it off or not.

6892

6893 This is a pic of my positions for 2022 from finale. the main 3 were 90' wide and the ones labeled left and right are 90' from the center position (I shoot comets from under some tree limbs LOL) 34 positions total I believe

[topshelfpyro]

Just a backyard guy with over 850+ cues. Thats funny and impressive. I'll have 504 cues this year to use and still think I need a few hundred more. Rick in Tampa called me "One of those guys, your a cue guy now" then he just laughed. My thought is the more cues I have the more fire power I have and the more creative I can be. But you Sir are not "Just a backyard guy"



I get it and laugh at myself with over $20,000 gear in my garage and being to cheap to pay $349 to pay for Finale3D. It makes no sense besides am frugal about buying things so I can buy more fireworks. (says the guy with $20K+ of gear he only uses 1 time a gear)

Haha thanks for saying that. 504 is awesome!! but if your a cue guy I must be a cue whore (I actually have 1296 FireTEK cues). I became a firm believer in 1 item = 1 cue when I was stupid enough to add music to pyro....."it'll be fun they said"

LOL yea I feel your pain I shoot only on the 4th when I get to shoot. I have a spreadsheet of my equipment that I own and it's cost just to do 1.4/1.4 pro fireworks, I try not to look at it even when I add equipment. I also have a 10x30 storage unit with probably 200 cases of fireworks that I pay rent for each month.

No joke, Finale (for me) was a game changer. I did a 360 pyrolama piece and finale probably saved me 40 hours at the computer doing different configurations of a 2 and 4 item rotating "clock" till I got the visual right on the screen that I had in my head to the music track. I tend to over script and then have to back it off and I've managed to keep things under 900 cues every year (yes I know I have a problem lol)

Non pyro people truly don't get it. I made the mistake of telling a friend I had $10k in my PA system, they was like oh cool you DJ or something....nope it's for fireworks on the 4th.....blank stare

[PyroFL]

Personally for me the one backyard I shoot has 4 positions on land - 5 positions on water and 3 other positions scattered about, and Finale for my situation doesn't seem to handle that. I mean Cobra's thing can handle label and reports and is a lot less expensive.

I did a lot of homework yesterday and last night, including emailing with Drew and even had a 30 min phone call with him.

We both are for the most part looking for the same thing to happen and I am pleased to report it can be done with no problem. (see photo) This setup didn't take me much time at all to setup and Drew gave me some extra tips to make it even work better and faster to cut down on programming time.

Every question I had for Drew he had an answer for plus more. I am just blown away by finale and will keep digging into both products until January 25th when I start on our show.6894

[PyroFL]

I became a firm believer in 1 item = 1 cue

I am just the opposite and fine that I am wasting a cue if I am only shooting 1 item per cue. I use a splitter DB25 boards to feed my stations so I don't waste cues. Out of a module I use a 3' to a breakout board to 2 50' cables left/right and then 1 25' center. The impedance drop is almost nothing and a lot safer then chaining them together with a lot higher ohm value loss at 150'.


No joke, Finale (for me) was a game changer. I did a 360 pyrolama piece and finale probably saved me 40 hours at the computer doing different configurations of a 2 and 4 item rotating "clock" till I got the visual right on the screen that I had in my head to the music track.

Saving time is music to my ears. I keep track of every man hour everyone works and what they were doing and got done that day. This really helps in the planning for the next year as our pyro crew gets better. We went from 742 man hours our first year as a group back in 2019 to now down to 655 last year with over 30% more product and adding 15 DMX items. If I could cut my programming time down by even 20 hours that would be great help which is one of my goals.

Only problem I am seeing at the moment is where I'm going to put a 4th monitor to program my show if I ended using Finale.

[topshelfpyro]

I am just the opposite and fine that I am wasting a cue if I am only shooting 1 item per cue. I use a splitter DB25 boards to feed my stations so I don't waste cues. Out of a module I use a 3' to a breakout board to 2 50' cables left/right and then 1 25' center. The impedance drop is almost nothing and a lot safer then chaining them together with a lot higher ohm value loss at 150'.


Sure I get it. My system uses rails so utilizing cues in different areas from the same output is pretty easy. What I meant by 1 cue-1 item is I try not to series/parallel wire anything anymore, I do have a bunch of Muuxbrd series quickplug boards which make it much less burdensome but still. When I have Finale 3d address the show I actually do it from left to right/front to back if that makes sense. So after setting in the field its very straight forward plugging in things.

[PyroFL]

I have now ordered both products and been trying out both for about a month, read both manuals, used both to build a mini show, made cakes and uploaded each show to my cobra system.

Both are great products and I found both easy to use after reading the manuals.

In the end finale 3D really stood out in easy of usage, programming and being a turnkey one stop shop program.

Would I use FWsim, absolutely! But feel if you’re not doing larger shows and you don’t need months to program like myself then FWsim is where it’s at as you can pay by the month.

I will have to be honest the $350 almost killed the deal for me, but after using the software and seeing how much time am going to save and being a turnkey for everything I need, fire machines, DMX, PAR lights and moving head lights it was a easy decision.

Both programs are not really geared at this time for 1.4 consumer products and don’t believe they ever will be, 1.4 PRO yes and 1.3 most definitely.

If you’re not going to use mostly 1.4 PRO product or 1.3 be prepared to be spending a lot of time building cakes.

One or two effect cakes are super easy to build but when you get into consumer cakes with a mix of various effects it will take you a good amount of time to build a cake.

With 1.4 PRO products I can build a cake in 5-15 mins on average.

1.4 consumer cake with 1-2 effects about the same time.

If you start getting into many effects, different timing as the cake progresses you should plan 45 mins to hour and half per cake.

When you have 78 different cakes like myself that were not in the online catalog including 1.4 PRO product line you’re going to need plan ahead.

That said, there is a few of us in contact outside of the forum that will be starting a data base of cakes.

Work smarter not harder!

[topshelfpyro]

Your gonna love finale 3d! Have you found the cake creator software vs building it off the timelines or vdl descriptions?
Personally, as a backyard guy, I don't have to have the perfect visuals but I do need the correct timing for whatever so I'll just make up or throw something in that is the correct time length and move on.

[PyroFL]

No I haven’t

Could you share the details for everyone, please?

Only thing I found online was wedding and birthday cakes software … lol

[topshelfpyro]

Cakecreator.finale3d.de

[topshelfpyro]

Cakecreator.finale3d.de

It will write the VDL for you after you create the cake

[PyroFL]

That’s perfect and just what I was looking for!’ THANK YOU

Way more simpler than having to take cakes apart and build them.

This should really speed things up on my end.

Like yourself I don’t mind if the cake isn’t perfect am not showing a perspective client and if I was I would go into high detail. I more less need timing and over all look … the rest I can do in my head like I’ve done for many many years.

Am so excited about this program am going to start on the 2025 show soon. BIG change coming in 2025

[Salutecake]

So far Finale 3d is doing everything I need it to do, yes an expense for the hobbyist and for me, certainly a learning curve. I compare it to using Microsoft Word compared to just Notepad. Everything I think of doing, I am finding a way to do it, on my own, help from Drew, and others on this forum. I did not yet look at the reports it can create, and I use all cobra so I will be anxious to to convert that to Cobra to see what happens.

Thumbs up so far. The only downside I see so far is that for the consumer and Pro stuff you have to build your cakes which is a little time consuming, but as pointed out here there are tools to make the process easier. Hopefully we will be able to share some of these cakes amaong us.

[topshelfpyro]

The only downside I see so far is that for the consumer and Pro stuff you have to build your cakes which is a little time consuming, but as pointed out here there are tools to make the process easier. Hopefully we will be able to share some of these cakes amaong us.


You have gone into your account and turned on the various manufacture catalogs right?
There is alot that isn't there especially in regular consumer but maybe the manufactures will make an effort especially in the proline area. I believe finale hired an effects creator in house to do some of that internally. I know there are people out there that do it for $5-6 and list the items for sale that they have done.
There is a discord out there but not much, everyone wants paid for their efforts......

[PyroFL]

@ topshelfpyro

Drew told me he had hired an army of cake builders. We should start seeing more update on a regular basis.

I’ll have to look into the manufacturer list, but I only see dominator and spirit 76.

Great start but like everyone I would like to see other product lines.

I would happily pay someone $5 per cake if I could find someone.

I need an intern … LOL

[Salutecake]

I have Winda and Racoon listed too. The generic for 1.3 is fine. It would be nice to see some more Pro cakes and even consumer canister shells, at least height for the canister shells.