FWsim stores your data securely on your own hard drive (in the “Documents” folder). It does not store data in the cloud.
Please keep in mind that hard drives sometimes fail. Therefore, please make sure that you regularly make backups of your hard drive.
In order to move your FWsim installation to a new computer:
Install and activate FWsim from your personal license page. You can retrieve your FWsim license key here on the website, or simply click “Help” -> “License Info and Upgrade” on your old computer.
On your old computer, locate the folder “Documents” -> “FW-Sim”. Copy this entire folder to your new computer, and put it into the same location. To copy the folder, you could use a USB drive. You could also pack the folder into a ZIP file (by right-clicking in Windows Explorer) and then send it via email.
On your new computer, make sure that FWsim is not opened while you copy the data from your old computer.
FWsim Pro includes a large collection of real effects from professional fireworks manufacturers. FWsim Creative Edition includes a smaller sample selection of real effects.
Simply put the files into your folder “Documents” > “FW-Sim”. (it’s best if you arrange them into subfolders for easier management)
Then, restart FWsim.
By default, FWsim simulates the inaccuracies inherent in real fireworks. If you want to change that, simply click Tools -> Preferences. Under “Simulation”, you can configure:
To do complex music editing, we recommend using the free software Audacity.
However, you can also export your music from FWsim. For example, you might want to put three different songs on the timeline, with some pauses in-between, and then export the whole audio.
To do that, click Export and then select “Music and SMPTE Timecode”. Pick the “Stereo Music” option and you’ll get a WAV file representing all pieces of music currently on the timeline.
When using the Discord Windows app to stream FWsim, the simulator might crash. This is because of Discords method of screen capture, which crashes FWsim as well as a number of other games and applications.
To solve this, please open the Discord settings, then click on “Voice & Video”. Find the option called “Use our advanced technology to capture your screen” and disable it.
FWsim has been designed from the ground up with realism in mind. Professional pyrotechnicians and enthusiasts around the world served as advisors from the very beginning.
Great care was taken that rising heights, timings and burst speed match real fireworks. The sounds are also recorded from real fireworks.
The fireworks effects included in FWsim Basic & FWsim Creative Edition do not correspond to specific models of real fireworks from a specific manufacturer. However, they are very similar to commercially available fireworks.
No, only on Windows. However, you can install Windows on your Mac computer and then run FWsim on that.
You can try the full version of FWsim for one hour. If you want to continue using it, it costs €49.99 / $49.99.
FWsim comes with an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee!
In My Documents\FW-Sim. There are subfolders for every author name.
Please make sure FWsim is closed. Then, go to My Documents\FW-Sim. You will find subfolders for every author name. You will also find one folder with downloaded effects. If you don’t need effects anymore, simply delete them or move them to a different folder outside of My Documents\FW-Sim.
Then, re-start FWsim and your effects will be gone.
FWsim should run very well on current PCs, even with huge fireworks. If you do experience bad performance, please try the following:
ShowSim is a different fireworks software. ShowSim and FWsim sometimes get confused.
A half/half-shell in FWsim. In the effect editor, click “File” -> “New”. Select “Peony”. Add a second set of Stars to the explosion node. Give each of the stars a different color. Set the distribution on both stars to “Hemisphere”. Then, click one of the stars and check “Rotate”, enter “180”. Be sure to rotate only one of the stars, and not the other. Your effect tree should look like this:
Shell
Explosion
Stars (Green, Rotate by 180°)
Stars (Red, no rotation)
To make the shell look a bit more clean and perfect, reduce the “speed variance” and increase the star count in both “Star” nodes.
Create one shell, and attach several explosions to it. Each explosion can occur at different times, and release different stars. The shell flies until the last explosion.
FWsim does not properly support colored smoke effects, but you can get something that looks roughly similar like this:
There is a configuration option, hidden in a file, which you can use to adjust how much light shines from fireworks on buildings and on the ground. To change this option, please follow these steps:
Right-click the file in iTunes, then select “Information”. A window pops up and at the bottom you will find the exact filename of the music file.
This file will usually be an M4A or AAC file. Unfortunately, starting with FWsim 3.2, M4A or AAC music files cannot be loaded directly. They need to be converted to FLAC. This conversion will not lead to any loss in quality, because FLAC is a lossless format. To perform this conversion, you can use this online converter.
After you have converted to FLAC, you can load the file in FWsim. In FWsim, simply click the “Music” button on the lower right, navigate to the path that iTunes displayed and select the correct file.
.SKP is a file format used by SketchUp Make, a 3d modelling software. These files cannot be directly imported into FWsim.
If you downloaded the 3D model from Google Warehouse, please download it again from there. After clicking the “Download” button, select the “SketchUp” format.
Otherwise, please follow these instructions:
At the moment FWsim does not have the feature to add water reflections. Some FWsim users export their videos and then use Adobe AfterEffects or other video editing software to add water reflections into the video.
In earlier versions of FWsim, you can see the version number at the top of the main window. In newer versions, you can see the version number at the lower right corner of the logo during startup.
First, try clicking Show -> Scenery and see if there’s any 3D world you like already included with FWsim.
If not, you have two ways of bringing new scenery into FWsim:
Method 1: Custom Background Image. You can choose a custom background image by clicking Show -> Scenery.
Method 2: Download 3D models from the Internet. The second way is to find 3D models you like on the internet. For example, you could download 3D models from 3D Warehouse. Make sure you select “Models” and not “Products” when you do your search. To download models from 3D Warehouse, you will need to sign up there (it’s free). When you find a 3D model you like, click “Download” and make sure to select the “Collada” file format. Then, please open the FWsim world editor (from the Tools menu), click “Add” and then “Import”. Select your newly imported model file. You can then arrange it in 3D space and when you’re happy, save this 3D world from the File menu. Then, close the world editor and from your show, click Show -> Scenery to select the world you just created.
FWsim by default uses the language of your Windows. If you want to use a different language, please follow these steps:
For German, use “de-DE”. Other language codes available are:
In June 2025 for update 4.1.1, we made some changes to automatic heights and delays, so they better match real effects.
If your shows or effects suddenly look different and you would like the old timings and heights back, simply change the option under Tools –> Preferences –> Automatic heights and delays.
The changes affect the following:
These changes do not apply in the following cases:
Please use these settings. All numbers are in inches, for FWsim running on US computers:
The left/right orientation in FWsim is always in the same direction, and it cannot be changed. In order to have rotation line up correctly with your audience perspective when using a Google Earth location, please try this: