Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Eric Craft on Sep 27, 2006 at 2:53:24 pm
From what I understand Combustion was born from the merging of Paint* and Effect* Technology after Discreet acquired those assets. I personally have no experience with Effect.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Pierre Jasmin on Sep 27, 2006 at 4:37:32 pm
False: Combustion was Illuminaire (spell?) Paint + Compositing system, first merged and then skinned with the Discreet look, then evolved from there
Effect was the stripped down Flint on an O2 I think
You might be better with a brand new box with Combustion unless you need to get familiarize with discreet systems somehow.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Ron Lindeboom on Sep 27, 2006 at 4:46:37 pm
Yes, Combustion grew out of Denim Software's Illuminare line, known as Illuminaire Paint and Illuminaire Composite. From what I remember, Effect* was a rebranded Illuminaire Composite and Paint* was a rebranded Illuminaire Paint.
I could be wrong but I do believe that is how it all played out.
Autodesk's Shawn Steiner would know best as he was there at Denim Software and knows which parts became what in the days ahead.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Theo on Sep 27, 2006 at 5:14:50 pm
yes the last version made was "effect v7.1 option 3" which was the same as flint 7.1 which had 90% of the same features as Flame 7.1 only slower ofcourse, but 400mhz was quite fast. It has true 3d space displacement and bicubics plus more.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Dean DeCarlo on Sep 28, 2006 at 2:07:29 pm
I have two effect option 3 (what an annoying name) systems that I used for many years. At the time they were a great alternative to buying a $250k Flame. I don't use them now for anything. I kept one system just in case I need to get a project off it. I got rid of the hardware on the second one but kept the dongle. I favor the Combustion workflow hands down. Also free network rendering is vital. On the o2 everytime you need to render you have to sit there waiting for it to chew through the frames. Plus any plugin you may need will cost 2 or 3 times as much as the PC version. I strongly advise you invest your money in a kick ass Combustion (or After Effects, Fusion whatever) system. The great thing about Combustion is you get a lot of what is good in Flint / Flame. Same tracker, color corrector and keyer. The only thing you don't get as someone else mentioned is the bicubic surfaces and 3d object import. Those features are not compelling enough to go with a system that was EOL'ed almost 5 years ago.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Theo on Sep 28, 2006 at 3:03:02 pm
Thanks Dean for your advice.
Im afraid ive already purchased it but it has yet to arrive, I got it very cheap, I used to use one many years ago, and I know what your saying, but I miss the 3d capabilities and the extended bicubics, the desktop editing that i wish i had with combustion, also its still call Flint when even though it was named effect, and Flint is a bigger brand name than Combustion. At first it was just to keep my hand in the flame scene, but now ,..well until i do some tests i may try and use it as earner, this one has 400mhz cpu, and there are still alot of flames out there that use dual 400 cpu's but only use one, and they charge $1000/hour for it. of course probably half the speed still, but i'vr actually seen flints on indigo sgi in flame suites as assist machines still in use. The average Flame probably renders slower in some cases than the latest G5 Combustion, but still it has a brand name and overal its faster becouse of it intuative interactive GUI, ie its so easy to cut out aframe and stick elsewhere in a sequence in seconds that would take mabe 5-10 mins on a combustion and it would be hell to do on a shake, unless you have FCP, which means going in and out of apps, this is one of the reasons FLame is still loved, and you can do the same in Flint/Effect, ...just my thoughts. BTW what CPU's did u ahve in your o2's.?
Oh yes Flame now has burn which is bg rendering , but still i know of a lot of high end post houses that stil dont use it.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Theo on Sep 28, 2006 at 4:11:09 pm
oh yes i forgot to mention Autopaint which has not changed since, the projectors, and probably i can make a big list of more stuff. There's a great masterclass on discreet website on flame using Autopaint, that can be done the effect/flint i purchased ....
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Dean DeCarlo on Sep 28, 2006 at 4:16:03 pm
I hear what you are saying. Brand name means a lot. I think I had 300mhz processors? They were the fastest R5k processor. Didn't have the R10k which at the time was very expensive and apparently didn't offer enough for the money. For cutting mattes etc. it's fine. I think to do a job with many layers is dangerous. Throw in field rendering, motion blur, plugins etc. and it will get crazy pretty fast. The interface is nice. Having a simple editor on the desktop is something I really miss but I still think you are much better off getting on to current technology. Doing basic editing (throwing frames here or there) in Combustion is very doable with the timeline and/or edit op. As for network rendering Burn is expensive and doesn't work with the o2. Good luck with it but I think will ultimately not be workable. If you need digital input / output I have a couple of Miranda SDI dongles. I'd sell you one cheap if I can find it. Also make sure to max out the RAM on the o2 as playback, video in/out are all done in memory. The o2 can't playback fullres NTSC SDI from the framestore in realtime. Frustratingly close like 27fps. I also have a Stone if you want it. That I'm going to throw out I think. It's a nice looking box but a POS. If you want the highest speed on the framestore buy at least 4 fast scsi wide drives, an adaptec pci scsi card (only certain ones work 3920 maybe?) and then connect 2 drives to the pci card and the other 2 to the o2's scsi port. Then you have to stripe the raid in the Flint setup file. God, it's all coming back to me. I hope you are familiar with Flint and Unix setup. You'll need it as there is no support. Not even for Irix!! Good luck again!
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Theo on Sep 29, 2006 at 1:31:18 am
Thanks Dean the system comes with sdi in/out board, also the cpu is R12 400, I undersrtand what your saying. I once worked on 45 min animation program on it but it was in Pal so 25fps was ok and i found it ok but that was 4 years ago. I also have a Combustion on a G5, and i thinks the o2 will come with 5 d plugins and a Alias Wavefront Dongle, wacom, Im going to get it anyway.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Dean DeCarlo on Sep 29, 2006 at 1:49:22 pm
There are a lot of tools there and to be sure you can do excellent work with it. I did many client supervised sessions with my o2(s) and everyone just assumed it was a Flame. I credit myself more than the machine for that really. I always called it a Flint and the hardware was in another room so that made it look like any other suite. If you are doing short pieces without too many layers it should work well for you. My work now is large volume, many layers, field rendering (a real slowdown on the o2) and motion blur etc. Just not doable even with two o2s. Plus with Combustion I can work on my laptop anywhere. That was one of the biggest reasons I switched away from using a "box" type system. To be unteathered. Good luck with it. If you need any setup help /advice send me an email.
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by Dean DeCarlo on Sep 29, 2006 at 10:50:34 pm
Yeah baby. Believe when I was on the o2 I was a believer in that platform and thought people who spent many 100ks on Flame and Inferno were insane. I wasn't getting $2000 / hour for those extra few seconds here and there. The transition to Combustion was really painless once I got in to it. The keyer, tracker and color corrector are 3 tools I use a lot so knowing them pretty well going heled a lot. From there I've found that I can do a lot of stuff more easily in C. In Flint /Flame world I always had a dozen source nodes to keep track of. Maybe if I'd had an Inferno I wouldn't have switched but when stuff got complex those o2s got brought to their knees right quick. I'm a big fan of C. I just wish there wasn't always this fear looming over us that Autodesk is going to dump it at any time to protect their more expensive systems. That's exactly what they did with the o2 basd Flint!
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by charles pierce on Sep 29, 2006 at 10:59:39 pm
[Dean DeCarlo]"I just wish there wasn't always this fear looming over us that Autodesk is going to dump it at any time to protect their more expensive systems. That's exactly what they did with the o2 basd Flint!"
Re: Discreet Effect Option 3 by shin kurokawa on Oct 3, 2006 at 12:50:33 pm
"its so easy to cut out aframe and stick elsewhere in a sequence in seconds that would take mabe 5-10 mins on a combustion and it would be hell to do on a shake, unless you have FCP, which means going in and out of apps"
Use c's Paint and Edit ops.
Should take you seconds, not minutes.
-Shin
