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Exporting to FireCtrlOverviewIn order to make a firing script, you need to configure your launch positions with specifications of your firing system. For instructions, please see the Export Overview section. When configuring your launch positions for the FireCtrl firing system, use integers from 0 to 999 for the module addresses; specify the "first pin" is 0 or A, and "number of pins" is 16. Set the "matches per pin" field to the maximum number of effects you would like Finale to assign to a single pin, which could be anywhere from 1 (conservative) to dozens (aggressive) depending on your firing system hardware specifications and wiring choices. Once you are ready to export your firing script, click the "File > Export firing script > FireCtrl" menu item. The FireCtrl FormatThe FireCtrl format consists of a header that includes the show name and number of cues, followed by rows to represent the shots. The file is an XML file, so you can view the file in a text editor or browser. The format groups all items firing on the same pin into a single row. Thus each row uniquely represents an impulse on a pin. The fields in the row indicate the launch time in milliseconds ("TIME") and the module address ("FM") and pin number ("OUT"), and row number ("CUE IDX"). It is common to ignite multiple items with a single pin, so to make the file easier to verify by eye the "NOTE" field in each row contains the concatenation of all the effect names on that pin. Other fields, "VERSION", "MODIFIED", "FPS", "MODE", "TIMER", "PART", and "MODE" all have constant values as shown in the example file below. Example File<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <CUELIST VERSION="1.0" CUES="12" NAME="2011_03_04_examplefile-firectrl" MODIFIED="1267810880" FPS="25" MODE="SEMI" TIMER="INTERNAL" COALESCE="false"> <CUE IDX="0" TIME="7150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="1" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="1" TIME="8150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="2" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="2" TIME="9150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="3" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="3" TIME="17150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="11" OUT="1" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="4" TIME="18150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="11" OUT="2" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="5" TIME="19150" NOTE="Red Peony 3"" FM="11" OUT="3" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="6" TIME="27150" NOTE="Red Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="4" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="7" TIME="28150" NOTE="Red Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="5" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="8" TIME="29150" NOTE="Red Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="6" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="9" TIME="37150" NOTE="Blu Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="7" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="10" TIME="38150" NOTE="Blu Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="8" PART="1" MODE="A" /> <CUE IDX="11" TIME="39150" NOTE="Blu Peony 3", Red Peony 3"" FM="10" OUT="9" PART="1" MODE="A" /> </CUELIST> The example above is based on four sequences of three shots separated by one second. The first six shots have a single effect per shot. The second six shots have two effects per shot. Because these particular effect names include a quotation mark character, the name fields have been "escaped" with " for XML parsers. The show file for this example, which you can load in Finale, and its corresponding exported script file are available at the links below. Some browsers have difficulty displaying the xml file in this particular format, but if you open the second link in a browser and the window is empty you can still save the content of the window to a file even though it appears empty. |
