combustion
by xtrmn8ngangl
on
Jul 20, 2007 at 12:01:13 am
hallo, i am a freelance editor, and i also tend to work a lot in either after effects or shake, mostly for title animation, keying, and animation from imported illustrator and photoshhop files. a lot of my client always speak about flame and inferno and some combustion. i was wondering if you all could shed some light on these programs...i work quite well with both after effects and shake and was wondering if there would be any big advantages in learning combustion. i took a look at it and i do not find it a bad program, and obviously because it is a new program a little strange, but is there any industry heiracy that places combustion above after effcts, or are they both a more or less the same packages from different manufactures...should i invest my time in something like combustion, flame or inferno or a 3d program like cinea 4d or maya? thanks for the help on a somewhat vague set of questions...
Re: combustion by Alan Okey on Jul 20, 2007 at 3:50:36 am
[xtrmn8ngangl]"is there any industry heiracy that places combustion above after effcts, or are they both a more or less the same packages from different manufactures..."
They can do similar things, but each has a slightly different focus.
Motion graphics artists prefer After Effects due to its tight integration with Illustrator and Photoshop and its UI similarity to Adobe apps in general. After Effects has a much larger user base, and ongoing development is assured. After Effects also has a greater number of plugins and third party interest.
While there are plenty of people who use After Effects for compositing work, Combustion is designed with a stronger focus in this area. Combustion has a hybrid interface, using both a node-based schematic paradigm and a layer-based workspace paradigm. As far as I know, AE does not allow you to actually work in its schematic view. Combustion's roto and masking tools are more advanced than those in AE, and its keying modules, while not necessarily as easy to use as "one click" keyers, are very comprehensive and offer a great level of control over a broad set of parameters.
While Combustion's user interface is similar to Flame's, they are different enough that experience with Combustion is only moderately useful when moving to the higher end systems products. Combustion does have a bit more mystique than AE due to the halo effect of its pricier siblings, but as far as any industry hierarchy goes I think that's largely up to the particular post house.
The biggest reason to be very cautious about investing in Combustion is that Autodesk's plans for Combustion are not very well articulated. Combustion's development cycle is much slower than that of AE, and many Combustion users are frustrated (enraged?) by Autodesk's notoriously tight-lipped approach to commenting on its development plans. Autodesk also has a history of dropping established products on a whim. If you want to see a group of really pissed off people, go read archives of discreet edit forums. Combustion also has the problem of being the lowest application on the Autodesk Media & Entertainment totem pole, so Autodesk is careful to make sure that Combustion doesn't get so good that it eats into its higher priced siblings' market share. As a result, Autodesk imposes arbitrary restrictions on Combustion's feature set and development strategy, which might make sense form a business standpoint but annoys the hell out of Combustion devotees.
Honestly, Combustion is not in the same league as Eyeon Fusion, which is fast becoming the industry darling in the compositing world. Fusion is much more expensive than either AE or Combustion ($5000), but it has a true 3D particle system, the ability to create 3D primitives and import 3D models, and other features that set it apart from the less expensive products. If Autodesk were truly serious about desktop compositing, Combustion's feature set would look a lot more like Fusion's than it currently does.
[xtrmn8ngangl]"should i invest my time in something like combustion, flame or inferno or a 3d program like cinea 4d or maya? "
It all depends on your needs. If you are primarily an editor and you get along quite well in Shake and After Effects, there's not really much reason to add Combustion unless you plan to use it for its strengths, i.e. roto, paint, particles and its unique user interface. As for Flint, Flame and Inferno, they are very expensive integrated hardware/software systems that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the only way you'll ever get to touch one is if you get hired to work for a post house that has one.
As for 3D applications, sure, why not? If you have the time and inclination to learn, a good fundamental knowledge of 3D applications can be a useful skill set to have. A strong 3D background can also help your compositing skills. Try to focus more on the general concepts of 3D modeling, animation and rendering instead of getting too attached to a specific software package. If you have a good basic grasp of 3D, you can more easily move between packages. Most major 3D applicaations have demo/learning editions that will allow you to get your feet wet and get a taste of their particular slant. Once you get to know their idiosyncracies, you can ultimately choose the application that suits you best.
'Blender' is a free fully finctional 3D graphics program, though its UI is far less intuitive than say Cinema 4d and not nearly as advanced, its a great program to play about with and no better way to find out if your willing to take it further...
Re: combustion by mikegn on Jul 20, 2007 at 9:50:36 pm
There WILL be a version 5 announced soon. This came direct from the head of the development team. I hesitate to list the exact date, because I don't want to say it and then have them push it back, but rest assured it's coming. Also, Toxic is the new Autodesk darling. It's supposed to be on par with Fusion, and the reason that they are shrinking combustion support is that they are focusing on toxxic so that autodesk has a middle ground product (someplace between the desktop only boutiques and the multi-million dollar facilities).
And btw, Alan, that was a great post.
Re: combustion by drkimca on Jul 23, 2007 at 10:21:52 am
"...should i invest my time in something like combustion, flame or inferno or a 3d program like cinea 4d or maya?"
You may want to examine the next 'step up' from Combustion: Smoke. (Also from Discreet/AD)
This is much less expensive than Flame, but considerably more than the software-only Combustion.
If you are familiar with the Combustion interface it is a great intro to running Smoke. The Smoke is also a full blown NLE, so you can actually cut the whole project in Smoke - as well as applying your color correction, F/X, comps, time ramps, 3D model import, grain tools, 3:2 tools, roto, paint, titles, multi-track audio mixing with automation and so on...
Smoke has the ability to import multiple 3D models and sequences of 3D models into it's workspace (the 'DVE') use multiple lights, camera and tracker data, so you CAN do cool 3D shots, but it doesn't have the 3D capabilities of a Maya or a 3DS.
Smoke has also be ported to PC/Linux and run well. Discreet/AD seems to have a serious interest in supporting and continuing the Smoke product line.
My bias:
I use both Smoke and Combustion daily in television production.
I hope this helps...
Kim
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Re: combustion by DavePotts on Jul 23, 2007 at 9:39:15 pm
Good to hear about C5 finally coming down the pipe... as good as I'm sure Toxik is for effects compositing, it would be a big waste of cash for us, and not even the right tool for the job.
Dave Potts
Broadcast Communications
University of North Carolina @ Charlotte
Re: combustion by bones on Jul 24, 2007 at 4:54:59 am
[Alan Okey]"While Combustion's user interface is similar to Flame's, they are different enough that experience with Combustion is only moderately useful when moving to the higher end systems products."
Combustion is really nothing like Flame. The only superficial resemblance is in the UI colour scheme, which is based on a SMPTE standard for working with colour images. The biggest advantage Combustion offers for people looking at an entre into Flame is that it shares some tools that you can learn.
"The biggest reason to be very cautious about investing in Combustion is that Autodesk's plans for Combustion are not very well articulated."
Seriously, this is true of any vendor because corporate law in the US makes it very difficult to give any kind of roadmap without leaving yourself wide-open for litigation down the track.
"Combustion's development cycle is much slower than that of AE"
That has been true of late but only because Adobe have sped up their development cycles. How long did we all wait for the update from AE 3.1 to 4.0?
"Autodesk also has a history of dropping established products on a whim. If you want to see a group of really pissed off people, go read archives of discreet edit forums."
Rubbish! It is my understanding that Edit was killed off for sound business reasons related to it's dependence on 3rd party hardware. Moreover, they learned a valuable lesson and I doubt they'll be dong anything like that again unless they have absolutely no other option.
"Combustion also has the problem of being the lowest application on the Autodesk Media & Entertainment totem pole, so Autodesk is careful to make sure that Combustion doesn't get so good that it eats into its higher priced siblings' market share. As a result, Autodesk imposes arbitrary restrictions on Combustion's feature set and development strategy, which might make sense form a business standpoint but annoys the hell out of Combustion devotees."
This is completely untrue. As you may or may not know, I was a Combustion Specialist for Discreet in 2002/2003 and I used to think that was the case but, believe me, there are no such restrictions. Any thing that can be made to work in Combustion is fair game. The main restriction is in Combustion's architecture - it is really a 2.5D engine that would have to be completely rewritten in order to accommodate things like 3D geometry or 3D particles and there is just not the return on investment to justify that with it's low price. It's a matter of not being able to have it both ways. i.e. If you want more features, you have to be prepared to spend more money. I honestly hope they put the price up with the next version so that they can justify putting more resources into it's continued development.
"Honestly, Combustion is not in the same league as Eyeon Fusion"
Hardly surprising given that Fusion costs five times more!
"Fusion is much more expensive than either AE or Combustion ($5000), but it has a true 3D particle system, the ability to create 3D primitives and import 3D models, and other features that set it apart from the less expensive products. If Autodesk were truly serious about desktop compositing, Combustion's feature set would look a lot more like Fusion's than it currently does."
Except they have Toxik which competes directly with Fusion. Toxik is aimed directly at VFX compositing for film, an area where Combustion has struggled to perform. Hopefully this will leave the way open in future for Combustion's development to focus on it's real strength - motion graphics - rather than it continuing to have to be a jack-of-all-trades.
There are a lot of other things I would like to say but I am back on contract with Autodesk, doing Toxik, and I'll probably be in enough trouble for this as it stands. One thing I will point out is how big a fire [pun intended] Combustion clearly lit under Adobe. All of a sudden they were ramped up development and every new release of AE since Combustion's launch in 2000[?] has reflected their desperate desire to match Combustion's compelling feature set. And when Combustion's price dropped, Adobe dropped their price to match. They clearly see Combustion as a big threat to AE's dominance of the motion graphics market which should tell you everything you need to know about how good it is.
Re: combustion by Alan Okey on Jul 24, 2007 at 6:03:15 am
Can Toxik now be purchased as a single seat product, like Fusion? Is its compositing toolset now fully developed? The most common complaints I've heard about Toxik in the past are that it can't be purchased in a single seat and that its toolset isn't complete enough for it to be a fully-featured standalone compositing application. If that's going to change, then maybe we'll sit up and take notice.
I think few people would agree with your opinion that Combustion's "real strength" is as a motion graphics application. If Combustion is such a great motion graphics tool, why does the text operator still choke on anything more than a paragraph of text? I really hope Autodesk doesn't relegate Combustion to being simply a motion graphics application. It's got much stronger competition than ever before with AE coming on strong and Apple's Motion growing up fast. Granted, Motion isn't anywhere near the compositing app that Combustion is, but for quick eye candy and motion graphics work, Motion is pretty slick - AND fast, something Combustion is definitely NOT.
[bones]"The main restriction is in Combustion's architecture - it is really a 2.5D engine that would have to be completely rewritten in order to accommodate things like 3D geometry or 3D particles and there is just not the return on investment to justify that with it's low price. It's a matter of not being able to have it both ways. i.e. If you want more features, you have to be prepared to spend more money. I honestly hope they put the price up with the next version so that they can justify putting more resources into it's continued development."
If Autodesk dropped Combustion's price prematurely, then that's their fault, not ours. I don't think that we should be grateful just because Autodesk decides to throw us their scraps whenever they feel like it. Combustion is starting to feel a lot like the old toy that gets thrown in the bottom of the toy box and neglected when a kid gets a new shiny toy to play with - in this case, the shiny new toy being Toxik.
I'm not expecting Combustion to miraculously inherit everything that's going into Toxik, but I would hope that Autodesk would spend more time optimizing the features that Combustion already has. Combustion's rendering performance sucks. It chokes on large amounts of text. Its particle system is notoriously buggy. It's far from perfect, and I don't think raising the price is any kind of an answer. I think many of us would be happy if Autodesk would just fix the major bugs and improve performance before they add more new features.
[bones]""The biggest reason to be very cautious about investing in Combustion is that Autodesk's plans for Combustion are not very well articulated."
Seriously, this is true of any vendor because corporate law in the US makes it very difficult to give any kind of roadmap without leaving yourself wide-open for litigation down the track."
I call bullshit, and I think a lot of users in this forum would agree with me. Plenty of software companies pre-announce their application development plans, and many even release beta versions of new applications. I just purchased a beta of Imagineer's Mocha, and they are quite happy to have my business.
I don't think we should have to hear from someone's cousin's brother's uncle that his friend who used to work for Autodesk heard a rumor that Combustion 5 might be coming out soon. Autodesk treats its customers with contempt, and it's not simply the only way to do business.
Re: combustion by bones on Jul 25, 2007 at 2:21:20 am
[Alan Okey]"I think few people would agree with your opinion that Combustion's "real strength" is as a motion graphics application. If Combustion is such a great motion graphics tool, why does the text operator still choke on anything more than a paragraph of text? I really hope Autodesk doesn't relegate Combustion to being simply a motion graphics application. It's got much stronger competition than ever before with AE coming on strong and Apple's Motion growing up fast. Granted, Motion isn't anywhere near the compositing app that Combustion is, but for quick eye candy and motion graphics work, Motion is pretty slick - AND fast, something Combustion is definitely NOT."
It's all swings and roundabouts and I've always found that whilst Combustion is slower to render, I can always arrive at the point where I am ready to render in far less time than with AE. If you try and use Combustion the same way you use AE it will always seem slow and clunky but if you use it to it's best advantage, I find it much faster to get things done.
As for the speed of the Text Operator, I've never had any real issues with it myself but I would never have got into Paint/Effect if it wasn't for the fact that the the text rendered so much better out of Paint than AE. My boss at the time saw me playing with the demo and bought it the next day [he never let me use my copy of AE at work]. TBH, I don't know if newer versions do a better job of text rendering but I don't have any problems with Combustion in that area.
"If Autodesk dropped Combustion's price prematurely, then that's their fault, not ours."
Absolutely. But times have moved on and we have a brand new application sitting above it so the game has changed for Autodesk.
"Combustion is starting to feel a lot like the old toy that gets thrown in the bottom of the toy box and neglected when a kid gets a new shiny toy to play with - in this case, the shiny new toy being Toxik."
I spend all day working with Toxik and to me, getting a chance to fire up Combustion feels like coming home. It doesn't feel old or clunky to me at all and it's got all the tools I need to do anything I need.
"I think many of us would be happy if Autodesk would just fix the major bugs and improve performance before they add more new features."
Performance issues were addressed in a practical way in v4, via the addition of more efficient ways of working, like the Merge Operator and the Constant Time Gaussian Blur. I don't think the resources are there to completely rewrite the engine so these kinds of improvements are where you are going to be able to speed up your work. It's just a fact, I'm not trying to defend it - just be realistic.
"I call bullshit, and I think a lot of users in this forum would agree with me."
I agree completely but it's the way it is for the company I work for. As I said, I could easily get my arse kicked for what I've said here already. I don't live in the US so I'm not up on the law but I know Autodesk are very conscious of it. My point is that you should not construe their silence as any indication of what is [or is not] going on.
"Autodesk treats its customers with contempt, and it's not simply the only way to do business."
I hope that's not true, although I have to say it was much more fun to work for Discreet than it is now. Most of the people are the same, it's just that we're bound by more rules and regulations than we used to be.
As for TOXIK, it has been available as a single seat for some time. But that's not what TOXIK is about, it's about the collaborative pipeline experience and using a single seat is kind of selling it short. It is not an end-to-end solution, it expects to be fed from something upstream before sending results to something else downstream so it's not intended for everyone. At the moment it's feature set exceeds Shake's and is fairly close to Nuke and Fusion in it's target areas. Where it excels is speed - it's way faster than anything you've used on a PC before. The pace of development is staggering, so you can expect it to go from strength to strength. That's the cool thing about a brand new product, there is always so much to do.
Re: combustion by Alan Okey on Jul 26, 2007 at 1:28:29 am
[bones]"It's all swings and roundabouts and I've always found that whilst Combustion is slower to render, I can always arrive at the point where I am ready to render in far less time than with AE. If you try and use Combustion the same way you use AE it will always seem slow and clunky but if you use it to it's best advantage, I find it much faster to get things done."
I agree with you 100% on this. I can absolutely fly in Combustion when using a tablet, and the UI is one of the main reasons I love Combustion so much. One of the reasons I never warmed up to AE was its horrible pallete-ridden UI. Funny how AE's UI is looking more and more like Combustion, isn't it?
[bones]"As for the speed of the Text Operator, I've never had any real issues with it myself"
I really like the features and quality of the text operator, please don't misunderstand me, but it does seem to have an issue with bogging down when importing large blocks of text (like ending credits and such). It also has its own little annoyances like not having the ability to italicize one word in a string of text without creating a new text layer/instance.
[bones]"I spend all day working with Toxik and to me, getting a chance to fire up Combustion feels like coming home. It doesn't feel old or clunky to me at all and it's got all the tools I need to do anything I need."
I agree with you to a point, but I guess I'm just selfish and would like to be able to do everything in Combustion without having to step out to Shake for little niceities like motion estimation/optical flow-based retiming. Granted, there are plugins available for for Combustion that add this functionality (i.e. Twixtor), but I'd love optical flow technology to find its way into Combustion natively.
I don't mean to sound too down on Combustion, because like you, I adore it as a tool for my everyday work. Any criticisms I have of Autodesk are motivated by my desire for more Combustion goodness, and I sometimes worry that they have refocused all of their attention on newer products (Toxik), and Combustion could languish as a result.
Re: combustion by Ron Lindeboom on Jul 24, 2007 at 2:06:10 pm
[bones]"Seriously, this is true of any vendor because corporate law in the US makes it very difficult to give any kind of roadmap without leaving yourself wide-open for litigation down the track."
Once again this kind of poppycock is simply NOT true. Yes, you cannot make announcements of things that you are "planning" which you know are either patently untrue and/or which you have no intention of honouring. BUT you can make announcements and even pre-announcements of things which you ARE willing to stand by and are dedicated to releasing and will.
In the past I have offered several examples, from Apple's near-year-early roadmap of their Intel Macs to Adobe's recent spate of pre-release roadmaps.
The problem arises when you MISLEAD your customers; that is what will get your buns caught in the wringer with the SEC.
[bones]"That has been true of late but only because Adobe have sped up their development cycles. How long did we all wait for the update from AE 3.1 to 4.0?"
Adobe's EXCEPTION to a long-standing development cycle is the 3.1 to 4.0 cycle. For years, Adobe has been releasing versions like clockwork. But if it makes you feel better to reach back a decade and then relegate a decade of development to being "true of late," then so be it.
Some of Adobe's point releases were quite substantial, such as the 4.1 release -- remember that one? 5.5 was pretty remarkable, as well.
Just saying that something is untrue doesn't make it so, Bones.
