Combustion?

#1

I edit in Final Cut and a friend of mine does 3d in MAX I do most of the compositing in FCP, I have used After Effects but I am thinking of using Combustion for OSX anyone out there using it and tell me there opinions of the program.

#2

Some people would say Combustion on Mac isn’t as “optimized” as PC because the interface was a little slow at times, but apparently that’s no longer the case with Tiger. Otherwise, I haven’t heard any complaints from anyone. There is a training video from VTC for Combustion and the author is a Mac guy so all 8 hours of training are Combustion on a Mac. You can preview the first few chapters for free on the VTC web site.

Aside from that PC/Mac differences I stated, here is what I like about Combustion over AE:

  1. Combustion can have multiple views at one time (single, double, triple, quad) similar to the way 3d software works. AE doesn’t have this as far as I know.
  2. Combustion has very flexible Preferences to when you start a workspace everything is set up exactly the way you want it. Sounds simple, but I find this helpful.
  3. No need to worry about several floating windows. I find this very distracting in AE.
  4. You can capture video directly in combustion. The Edit operator is very good for quick NLE.
  5. Things like particles, the keyer, and color correction tools are “home grown” by discreet where as AE uses 3rd party plugins to supliment this in the “Pro” version. What I don’t like about this is you buy the Pro version of AE, then these developers upgrade their plugins shortly after and you end up paying more to keep up.
  6. I don’t know if Mac supports this, but the free render-node software and management application (Backburner and Render Que) is much better than Adobe’s way of rendering multi-node. Most people use a 3rd party program for good render-node management for AE.
  7. Ability to preview movie clip thumbnails in the “Open” dialog box without actually opening the clip all the way, in case you need to scrub through them before deciding which one you want.
  8. If you like to use a Wacom tablet, Combustion is perfect. I find AE’s interface too tedious and rigid to use a Wacom.
  9. Combustion lets you use a Node view if you like working in a similar fashion to Flame, Digital Fusion, Nuke, Shake, etc…

These are some of the things I like about Combustion over AE.

#3

Thanks for the info. I have downloaded the trial and it seem simple enough. I am looking to start my own effects house. My friend that is helping me is a MAX GURU so we will be using MAX for 3D but we both agree FCP is the best NLE available.So I will me buying MAX and will most likely get the bundle with Combustion. It is a lot cheeper that Shake and is intergrated with MAX so I think that will be my choice

#4

Particles are actually from Particle Illusion 2 not Discreet. However, tracker, keyers, gmasks, color corrector, etc are from the big brother FFI systems.

I don’t know if Mac supports this, but the free render-node software and management application (Backburner and Render Que) is much better than Adobe’s way of rendering multi-node. Most people use a 3rd party program for good render-node management for AE.

The Mac only supports watch folders like After Effects and there are little to no 3rd party render managers for the Mac. However, there are numerous ones that support both Max and Combustion for the PC.

-Eric

#5

My personal experience is that performance did not improve with Tiger (if it does then its too little to actually notice). But since we upgraded to 10.4 I have some problems saving workspaces (need to try a few times till it actually saves it…)

I agree with most of your other points…

-k

#6

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