If you experience performance problems, try selecting a lower quality. Otherwise, we recommend always picking the highest quality setting for a better result.
This option has no effect on the export of video: During export, FWsim always uses the highest quality.
When stopping playback, stop all effects: When this option is activate dand you stop playback, then all effects will stop immediately.
Select from Effect Library with Single Click: Normally, in the effect selection window, you need to select the effect and then click “OK”. If this option is activated, then just clicking the effect is enough.
Mark ascent times on cues: Shows bars on cues in the timeline, which indicate the times at which an effect is opened in the sky.
Reduce this value to see more tracks simultaneously.
We recommend leaving this on, so you always have the latest FWsim version.
If VSync is activated, your computer waits until the current image is drawn, before sending another image to the monitor. Therefore, FWsim needs to wait before drawing each image, reducing performance.
De-activating VSync can make FWsim a little bit faster. Please note: in very rare cases, your computer may overheat when VSync is disabled. This can only happen when your computer is dusty or insufficiently cooled. And most modern computers will just switch off when overheating, with no permanent damage. Therefore, the risk to your computer is very low. Still, we want to inform you of this small risk.
You can enable or turn off the dark mode in the preferences section.
Ascent Sparks and Explosion Sparks can be disabled for all the effects in the preferences section.
Rotation back/front is hidden by default in the sidebar, but it can be enabled in the preferences section.
Using this option, you can insert your company logo in videos. Use PNG files with alpha transparency to achieve a correct outline for your logo.
Enter an arbitrary text to be shown in the video. You can use both text and logo at the same time.
See Firework Database.
This feature is useful when you want multiple cues to fire at the same time. If activated, then cues will snap onto other cues when moving them on the timeline. You can temporarily disable this snapping by holding the CTRL key while moving a cue.
Normally, when exporting a video, FWsim creates an AVI video file. This is a compressed video file. Video compression reduces the quality slightly.
To achieve the very best possible quality, you can ask FWsim to generate a series of PNG images, which you can then combine to a video manually. If you’d like to do that, please activate the “PNG images” checkbox in the preferences. Then, when export a video, you are prompted to select a directory (instead of a filename). The individual frames of the video will be saved as a series of PNG files, and the audio will be stored as WAV. Afterwards, you can use free software to create a very high quality video file from these PNG files (for example, VirtualDub ). Contact us if you have questions about this procedure, we are happy to help.
Defines the character used to separate columns for CSV data export.
See the “Export” chapter.
Shows a ruler in the show editor 3D view. Also shows the precise positions while moving cues.
Note: To see dimensions in the firework editor, click View → Show Dimensions while in the firework editor.