Re: Why does AD bother with desktop Compositors?

I just remember a while back, in a similar discussion, Bones talking about Toxic being Combustion's replacement. I went to AD's website and checked out it's features and watched some of the demo videos to get an idea of it's workflow. While I thought the UI was very elegant and more modern than Combustion's, it was obvious that its focus was STRICTLY on the film side of things.
If I saw the same features that Combustion had, combined with the newness of Toxic and all its added capabilities, I would have been very excited to consider Toxic as such.

Alas, it is not...and it doesn't even pretend to be. That's why I am confounded when folks more informed than myself say that Combustion won't be developed because of Toxic.

That's like saying the Ford F-150 won't be re-designed in any future models because of the F-350's (PowerStroke Diesel engines). They are both trucks, but they cater to slightly different markets.

Fusion also uses some AE plugins via an adaptor, as well as Saphire plugins(AE SDK?)...so, if AD wanted to develop Combustion, to include 64/32bit I don't see why 3rd party dev's wouldn't work with AD...even if it meant going to a new standard (OpenFX). If they receive licensing fees for every Combustion seat, why would Trapcode's dev. not want to re-write his plugins to the OpenFX standard, and to where it's available to the whole market? During a re-write, I don't think AD would need to resort to using ReFlex anyway...they have morphing tools in Toxic, so I'd imagine they'd want to use those tools instead (the same way many of CB's best tools are handed down from FFI).

Imagine Toxic and Combustion with Particular, and perhaps 3D Stroke and Shine built-in.
After such a re-write, why not put CB right in the sweet spot between AE and Nuke/Toxic...something like $1995. It would be well worth it.

No one is asking it to match Toxic feature for feature, but keep them on separate paths and give Combustion the love it deserves...it's Max integration features are a real keeper.