Configuring a PC for Combustion
by Alan Stolfus
on
Dec 6, 2006 at 4:31:11 pm
What would be the ideal setup for a computer running Combustion? Is Combustion running on 64-bit?
Do I want as much RAM as I can get? SCSI drives?
We are moving to HD and I am afraid of how much more time it will take in production to deliver our assets. I would love to buy a smoke system and be in a real-time environment but can't afford it! I hope I can shave off some time by utilizing the integration between Combustion and 3DSMax.
Oh, can anyone explain if there is a difference between Toxic 32-bit float and Combustion?
Any wisdom regarding these issues would be much appreciated.
I have used combustion on two projects. Thought it was really cool, but it was a more difficult switch coming from an After Effects mindset than I though it would be.
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Eric Craft on Dec 6, 2006 at 7:42:41 pm
Combustion 4.x is currently only a 32bit application. Under a 32bit OS it will utilize 2gb of ram (3gb in windows with the /3gb switch) and up to 4gb of ram in a 64bit OS. Toxic differs from Combustion, from what I understand, in that it is float at the core and combustion is not. Only certain features and operators support higher colors per channel than 8bit, with Toxic everything is float.
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by gary m. davis on Dec 6, 2006 at 9:11:24 pm
thats not entirely accurate. combustion works with float, but it clamps color at 1.0. toxik doesnt clamp color unless you want it to. if you render RPF float from 3ds max, it allows the same non-destructive color correction possibilities as toxik does with EXR, for example.
//garyD
gary m. davis // visualz.com
application training specialist
3ds Max | Combustion | Toxik
"don't key DV!"
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Jeff Brown on Dec 7, 2006 at 3:12:36 pm
It does take some time to switch from AE to C*; I can attest from experience. But it was worth it for me. My recommendation would be 4 GB RAM with WinXP Pro (32 bit) for now, look up the "/3GB switch" for booting on the MS tech area, then you can use about 2.7 GB in Combustion. Install a couple of SCSI or fast SATA drives as a stripe set for faster footage access (only footage that exists somewhere else as a backup! -- RAID 0 is actually more likely to fail).
Then -- get one or two moderately fast cheap machines w/ 2 GB each (like a Dell refurb) and take a day to set up BackBurner. Backburner alone is reason enough to use C* over AE. By using a Switcher Op, you can be rendering one part of your comp while working on another part.
BTW, Toxic is in the "multi-thousand dollar" range ($20 K maybe?)
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by B.J. Ahlen on Dec 8, 2006 at 12:02:51 am
[Jeff Brown]"Backburner alone is reason enough to use C* over AE."
Why do you say that?
Do you think Backburner is better than Nucleo Pro's continuous speculative on-the-fly rendering for AE? (It is $399 extra, unless you bought the $299 pre-release.)
C* has other strengths, but I'm a bit concerned over its future or lack of it. Certainly what's there now won't stop working, but is there a way forward?
There are already enough AE-compatible tools that work only with AE, because the tool vendors don't think C* has much of a future. The AE-compatible API in C* is ancient, that's not helping either.
I hope I can be forgiven for thinking that it would be in Autodesk's interest to show their roadmap for C*, assuming they have one.
I could certainly see how Toxik fits in with the rest of the product line much better than C*.
Possible scenario: third party support for C* fades to "legacy," C* owners get a notice that "C* will no longer be supported by Autodesk, but please find enclosed a $500 voucher towards a Toxik 2.0 seat."
Whatever the future is, I can't help thinking it could only help Autodesk to share it with us, the users. We need to look ahead also, and we are sucking on the last of the remaining Discreet goodwill and the fact that we like working with the C* interface.
Anyone else feel the same way, or am I just seeing this the wrong way somehow?
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Jus on Dec 8, 2006 at 12:00:58 pm
[B.J. Ahlen]"Nucleo Pro's continuous speculative on-the-fly rendering for AE"
Is it true that Nucleo Pro licence cannot be shared among workstations? So if you have more than one workstation in your studio a separate licence will be required for each..? that's alot of $399's...Is this the same as Backburner? Can anyone clarify this? It does seem an expensive solution...
To be fair though, Backburner may not be justification for everyone to choose C* over AE, but it is an economical and functional incentive for some. I'm with Jeff on this one, it's a good option.
On the issue of C*'s future, well that's another question altogether. I would like to see a "roadmap" too, but that is NDA territory. However, I agree that there is not enough noise from Autodesk that C* dev and support will continue and confidence is low in this respect. It is disappointing that little offical endorsement of its continuation is forthcoming, given the climate of rumor mongering...
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Jeff Brown on Dec 8, 2006 at 3:18:04 pm
[B.J. Ahlen]"[Jeff Brown] "Backburner alone is reason enough to use C* over AE."
Why do you say that?
Do you think Backburner is better than Nucleo Pro's continuous speculative on-the-fly rendering for AE? (It is $399 extra, unless you bought the $299 pre-release.)"
I'm out of it, sorry. I had forgotten about Nucleo (it's been a few years since I really followed AE development); that certainly could be quite a workflow boost. I will say that BackBurner has worked dependably for me, and there is no extra charge-- for up to 999 rendering machines. But I would also agree that Combustion is showing its age...
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Dean DeCarlo on Dec 8, 2006 at 11:10:18 pm
Jeez, what is all this guff about Toxik anyway? The demo I saw was lame. It didn't even look like a version 1 product. Cool interface, potential yes but not a replacement for anything. Has something big happened with Toxik? Are people actually using it? I agree that Combustion is showing it's age but it works and it's got a ton of tools that work. I'm not going to be throwing it out for a while.
To respond to the original post about configuring a PC. I just built two Core 2 Duo machines based on Gigabyte P965 motherboards with 4gb ram each and Nvidia 7900GS graphics. They are sweet. I have 4 Seagate 320gb disks ($90/each!)set up as a 1.2 TB Raid on one of them and get 300mb/sec. read and write. I'm getting rid of my old loud and hot Scsi array. This thing is silent and renders more than twice as fast as my old dual Xeon box. And that's without overclocking.
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by Eric Craft on Dec 7, 2006 at 3:24:54 pm
Thanks for the info/correction Gary. So as long as you work in 0-1 float space then combustion can use float workflow, correct? The price tag on Toxic (note this information is based on Toxic 1.0, pricing may have changed for Toxic 2007):
A single standalone creative seat costs US$6500. However, facilities need to purchase a minimum of five seats of Toxik since the creative seats are sold in packs of five. In the five-pack, the price ends up being $5525 per seat, which reflects a 15% discount for the multiple license purchase. With discounts, pricing can scale to less than $4550 per set for large sites. There is also a US$2,500 annual fee per seat for collaboration and maintenance. You basically have to pay both the creative and the collaboration fees, otherwise you totally lose the collaborative workflow and database upon which Toxik is built.
From what I have read Toxic still lacks some features of Combustion and vice versa. Hopefully, at some point, there will be a standalone Toxic, but currently it is not being sold that way.
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by gary m davis on Dec 8, 2006 at 4:31:25 pm
if you want to work in float between max and combustion, i'd suggest RPF. it works in a non-destructive color space unlike linear formats like TIF, TGA, JPG, AVI, MOV, PNG
i typically use 48bit (aka 16bit per pixel) PNG unless i know i need float. i use render elements over RPF for most stuff unless i need camera data. the gBuffer builder accomodates a lot of RPF-like workflows without the need for RPF - combustion is the only app in the world, autodesk or otherwise, that can do this, btw.
Re: Configuring a PC for Combustion by keyframe on Dec 13, 2006 at 3:43:22 pm
[gary m davis]"if you want to work in float between max and combustion, i'd suggest RPF. it works in a non-destructive color space unlike linear formats like TIF, TGA, JPG, AVI, MOV, PNG"
You also stated earlier, "...combustion works with float, but it clamps color at 1.0. toxik doesnt clamp color unless you want it to. if you render RPF float from 3ds max, it allows the same non-destructive color correction possibilities as toxik does with EXR, for example."
Gary:
I'm getting off the original thread topic, and I'm showing my ignorance, but may I ask you to further explain what you meant by "non-destructive." I thought that I sort of understood the advantage of supporting floating-point values outside the range of 0 to 1. That, for example, operations could throw values into "superwhite" range without losing that data (from clamping), while later operations would be able to bring those "superwhite" values back into the "visible" range (trying to rephrase R. Brinkmann).
I had thought that Combustion's lack of support for float outside 0-1 could be considered a substantial disadvantage compared to Toxic, Shake, etc. Are you saying that RPF float provides some sort of protection from the normal Combustion clamping of float values. Then what about float in other file formats (e.g., tif, exr)?
