Re: Is combustion 2008 Worth it?

[Keith Hill] "Trying to hamstring a application to protect other products is risky IMHO"

This is a ridiculous statement. It is a simple and oft repeated fact that Combustion's basic architecture has certain limitations that cannot be overcome without a complete rewrite of the code-base, similar to what was done with Fusion 5. So Autodesk created a whole new application called Toxik to address these same issues. I suppose it made more sense to someone in Montreal than either killing off Combustion and promising to be back in a few years with something new or getting all your customers to upgrade to a less-than-stable complete rewrite with no backwards-compatibility to the old version. Instead yo have the choice to continue to use the application you have now or, if you need some of what the new technology offers, you can choose to buy Toxik at a reasonable price [that will hopefully ensure its long-term future].
Combustion's biggest problem is that it is too cheap - it doesn't generate enough income to justify putting huge resources into.

[Keith Hill] "I have often thought that one of the things that would position Combustion in the middle of everything is to allow 3rd party developers to be able to create plug-ins as is the wide-spread situation for After Effects."

I think this has been tried [ReVision:Effects and Trapcode] but these are small operations that also need to see a return on any development work, which I gather never happened because Trapcode haven't kept 3D Stroke current for Combustion and Peder, the guy who makes that stuff, seems to have zero interest in updating it. Unfortunately, people aren't going to spend money or waste effort just because you or I might want them to. That said, the vast majority of AfterFX plugins work perfectly well in Combustion and the top-tier developers, like GenArts, always try to ensure that they remain that way.

I'm a contractor for Autodesk at the moment but, unless otherwise stated, all opinions expressed here are my own.