FireOne Malta

The Flame projectors are controlled from DMX packets of data that are sent during the firing of the display itself. Let's have a look through the requirements and procedures from a technical point of view. So,

Step1: Perform the choreography using ScriptMaker Visual. The software lets you load a database of 'shells' that is going to be used in the fireworks display. However, in this case, we are not going to be using fireworks, but flames. If this is your first time that you are opening ScriptMaker Visual to make a flames choreography, we at fireone prepared the database for you which you can just download and install from here. If you have already installed the flames database, just move onto the next step.

Step2: Open ScriptMaker Visual and instead of the 'shells' database, open the flames database. (To open the flames database, one has to click on 'Product Database Options' on the menu bar and than select 'Open New Product File'. Navigate to 'C:\Program Files\Fireone\Scriptmaker' and there you should find the 'Flames.mdb' database. Select it and click 'Open'. Now you have successfully loaded the Flames database.

(The Anatomy of the Flames Database: The flames database gives the user the possibility to use up to 52 flame projectors within one choreography. Remeber that each flame projector can shoot up to four different colored flames. Thus, 52 flame projectors can produce 208 distinct flames. However, we did not leave all the 52 flame projectors as a chunk, we subdivided them into sets of 13 flame projectors each. Thus, one can query and view only the first set of flame projectors by selecting 'Flames_13' from the 'Vendor Select', the second set of flam projectors is 'Flames_26', and so on. Further queries can be done according to the flame color from the 'Color Select' dropdown list. Note that the database updates automatically according to the user's selection. It is highly important that NO CHANGES are done to the database. It should be left AS IS. Changes in the database can lead to undesirable results when letting off a flames display.

Furthermore, one can note that each color within the 'Product Number' list or the 'Description' list of the flames database has a unique Identification Number. This number corresponds exactly to the channel number that one will be using when setting up the flame projectors physically in place.

Finally, every flame projector is assigned to a named position. Thus channels 1,2,3 & 4 are assigned to Location A. Channels 5,6,7 & 8 are assigned to Location B... channels 49,50,51 & 52 are assigned to location M.)

Step3: Load the music in .wav format and start assigning the flames according to your needs. At this stage, the choreography is done exactly as if one is handling fireworks. Normal choreography procedures should be followed as outlined in the ScriptMaker Visual instruction manual.

Step4: At this stage it is important to understand the procedure that should be followed to handle the flames correctly. With the fireworks, when one lets off a firework, it is the effect in itself that controls its duration. Now, we are dealing with flame projectors and in this case, we have TOTAL control on the duration of the flame itself. What does this mean? It means that we can specify that flame at position A should have a duration of 0.5 seconds, flame at position B should have a duration of 2.3 seconds, etc. This means that we can specify the duration for a flame or a set of flames from ScriptMaker Visual. The duration can be anything from 0.01 to 3.00 seconds. The flame duration should be inputted in the 'Comment' column of the choreography.

Having said that, it is important to note that FireOne Flames is intelligent enough to automatically calculate the duration of the current flame/s in relation with the following flame/s. This automatic calculation is done only if the user does not input any number (leave blank) in the 'comment' column. Should the user input any other number, the software accepts the user's input and ignores the automatic calculation for that particular flame/s.

Step5: Once that the flames choreography is finished in ScriptMaker Visual, it should be saved as a .fir file through CueMaker Visual. There is no particular module assignment method required - in the case of a flame projector display, any assignment method will do. Refer to the CueMaker Visual instruction manual for further details. The creation of a .fir file for the flames is exactly similar to a fireworks display .fir file.

Step6: Open the FireOneFlames Wizard and follow all the steps. Note that the flames wizard takes you through the following steps:

1. Open the .fir file created in step5 above.

2. Specify the music file used in ScriptMaker Viisual to make choreography.

3. Specify the path where the 'Show Cue List' file (.scl) should be saved.

4. Choose if a full color flame display is required or if user want to convert all choreography to

just yellow flames (lpg only).

5. Option to generate a flames report. This report will let you know the number of times and the

total duration for each individual flame. The duration is intended to guide the user if a flame

is overused and thus risking in not having enough spray oil to perform all the display.

Reports can be generated either for Notepad (.txt) or for Mocrosoft Word (.doc).

Step7: Open the

FireOne Flames and

load the .scl

file generated in

step 6 above.

The user can

view a

graphic

display of the .scl file by pressing F2 or review the flame usage report by pressing F3.

The

scl

file

graphic

display is an ideal way to visualise the sequence of the flames according to their location and colour. On the other hand, the report is intended to let the user know how many times is each flame being used and the total duration in seconds for each coloured flame. If a flame is overused, the report will identify the problem area.

Step8: The next thing to do is to connect the FireOne Flames DMX splitter via the USB port with a USB port on your pc or laptop. (It is assumed that the Flame projectors are already connected with the FireOne Flames DMX Splitter). Windows should automatically install the drivers for the DMX Splitter. In the 'Firing Control' section click on the red 'Not Connected' button to make your laptop connect with the DMX Splitter. Upon successful connection the red button should turn to green and displays 'Connected'. Further connection details are provided, like the connection port number, serial number of the FireOne Flames DMX Splitter, Firmware Version and the Refresh Rate.

By default, the 'Seconds before starting' is set to 10 seconds, but this can be changed according to the users's needs. The 'Seconds before starting' is like a countdown that is carried out prior to letting off the programmed FireOne Flames show saved in the scl file. The number of seconds can range from either 1 second to 9999 seconds. It is suggested that countdown is kept to 3 seconds minimum.

Click on the green 'Safe' button to turn it to 'Armed'. This will turn the DMX Pro to a standby position - where it is waitng for information arriving form the scl file soon. Once that the red 'Fire' button is pressed, the software will first go through the countdown defined in the 'Seconds before starting' box and than continue to automatically play the music together with the scl file choreography.

This process is similar to letting off a fireworks display with FireOne2000. In both software, the user is able to view the past shots, the current shot and the remaining shots. user is given the possibility to 'Pause' the flames display at any point in time and than resume from the point again by clicking 'Fire' again.

Should the necessity arise to stop all the flames from firing but keeping the music going on, one can press the 'Blackout' button. This will force the DMX Splitter to stop sending firing messages to the flame projectors even though the music is still progressing throughout all the choreography.

When the show finishes from firing, the software automatically reloads the last choreography/music and waits for further instructions from the user. This gives you the possibility to repeat the last show performed again and again without having the need to keep on reloading it or reseting it every time.

Some technical details concering the flame projectors themselves: