How did you learn Combustion?

#1

I’m just playing around with the trial of version 4. On the motion graphics sides things are going really well - I’ve used Photoshop for years so many of the settings are familiar to me.

I’m curious though, how did you learn Combustion? There aren’t a great deal of tutorials out there and the ones that Autodesk / Discreet provide don’t seem to go into too much details. Did you just play around with it? Did you have a background in a similar tool? How long did it take you to be skilled at Combustion?

#2

I played with the demo. Once I bought it I learned most by having to do shots, which is how I learn most programs. Shot calls for a certain look/effect and I would find a way to do it, “Failure is not an option!”. Also, Ken LaRue’s The Street Productions DVDs are a great commercial resource. Ken has also posted some free videos here. FXGuide has a list of tutorials here. Also, watch tutorials on other programs and adopt them to Combustion.

-Eric

#3

http://www.amazon.com/Focal-Easy-Guide-Combustion-Professionals/dp/0240520106/sr=8-2/qid=1159378666/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-3614486-8504927?ie=UTF8&s=books

Gary Davis’ book is good as well

#4

Me: “Hmmm I wonder what this does… cool.”
*I don’t recommend this method. Take a class. Check out FXguidePHD.

To Composite: I used photoshop.

#5

Hi DrQuincy,
If you have no prior video compositing knowledge i would suggest learning after effects becore attempting to use combustion. This is only my opinion, so if anyone disagrees, feel free to express yours. After Effects is a more intuitive program for new users to compositing, as it is similar to photoshop. There are a large quantity of resourses for After Effects on the net. After getting the hang of After Effects, and feel confident when using it, i would suggest trying to use Combustion. Combustion is a more…lets say touchy when trying to do certain things. However in many aspects i believe combustion is a more powerful compositing package (Im not trying to have a combustion vs after effects debate, so please dont try and flame me) though it takes a little more to get your head around. I Started using After effects to composite, then moved to combustion, and i am enjoying the switch, even though things dont always do what i want it to.

Good Luck

Rhodar

#6

He’s right. If you want to practice compositing in a safe photoshop environment AE is the way to go. It’s as close as a motion image application can get to photoshop in look and feel. The problem is… I feel like that’s its greatest draw back (besides lacking many features I need). Personally I find the AE inteface horribly awkward (and I started off using AE before buying a copy of combustion) and assbackwards. They’ve improved the interface tremendously in 7 so if you do go that route, I wouldn’t recommend anything less than 7. It also has amazing features like gasp F-Curves. If I have to animate a circle using speed curves one more time, a macintosh G5 is going to fly.

I wouldn’t be to concerned though about the learning curve on Combustion. It’s completely unlike any application you’ve ever used, but it doesn’t really take much time to get the hang of it. Also I’ve found it was an excellent stepping stone to node based compositors like Shake, Nuke and Fusion.

Also combustion has a very nice graphically oriented interface. The color corrector is a perfect example of this. Instead of having to move hundreds of little sliders, just about every single interface thatcan gives you a graphical expression to its purpose will.

#7

Hi there

I bought the Combustion 4 Courseware book last week and have pretty much worked right through it. It was a fantastic introduction to the software and while I still find it a little confusing I sort of know what does what now. Having a few years of Flash and Photoshop experience were a real bonus as there are a lot of similarities (the Paint stuff is like some Flash stuff and the transfer modes and colour correction stuff were familiar thanks to Photoshop).

The tracking and stabilizing were new though - as someone who’d never seen that before I just thought . . . wow! This is amazing!

I’ll admit the interface is unique and takes some getting used to but I’m completely hooked on the application now. As a 3ds max user and what I’d read about Combustion having similar keying algos to the FFI systems and being a closer step to Shake, etc than AE I had made up my mind that this was the application to choose.

The only downside it Combustion runs really slow on my rubbish setup.

Thanks for all your help.

#8

Haha it’s not just your computer. Even on my top of the line workstation at work it was a real waiting game. I would love to see them go through and try to optimize as many of the effects as possible to use the GPU. A fully GPU accellerated compositor would be a sight to behold. If all they did was tackle interactivity in Version 5 like they did with Max 9 I would rejoice and be happy. Oh and add more nodes that are designed to make Combustion more node friendly like they did in 4. Thank you autodesk!

#9

I guess you don’t do any network rendering then. If you do you don’t want GPU acceleration as you would get different results from different chipsets. Personally I would be happy with some code clean up and make the existing features full featured, like EXR with extended data channel support and properly working alphas.

-Eric

#10

Oh of course I wouldn’t want to do my final renders through a GPU. I’m suggesting they try to move towards a 3D App model where you have a viewport that gets as close as humanely possible and then double check accuracy using a software viewport and render either locally or remotely using a software final.

#11

You don’t realise how slow; I’ve got a 3 yr old AMD with a GeForce4 ti4200. The problem is I’m a broke web developer and could never hope to really good system due to lack of funds and the fact I’d get very little work from having Combustion skills. Doh!

#12

I was pretty much thrown in at the deep end - It’s not really that hard an application to get to grips with, it’s not without it’s quirks however.

You can accelerate your viewports with opengl, which helps a bit, but it really could be made faster, palming work off to the GPU isn’t as bad an idea as it sounds, you can use it for the tough maths, and leave off the rendering (3D apps are heading down this path).

#13

http://www.artinstitutes.edu/miami/programdegrees.asp?pid=57&dtid=5&display=program

#14

http://www.amazon.com/Focal-Easy-Gu…ie=UTF8&s=books

Gary Davis’ book is good as well

Take a class. Check out FXguidePHD.

Gary is teaching the combustion course at FXPHD.

#15

I just started playing around with it, and then I decided to pick up “Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware” book, and it’s VERY helpful. Not only do you learn the interface, it gives you alot of projects that teach you all the different aspects.

#16

in the boyscouts. We used to train making fire then

#17

A Discreet preview was done at my school showcasing 3ds max and combustion 3, I have a pretty good memory so when I started messing with it I remembered a little of the test scene they showed us the few months before. Also I had a book written by Gary Davis called the Focal Guide to Combustion 3, that was a great desk reference to overal compositing in combustion. I also seem to remember that 3dbuzz had some videos a while back that a fellow student had and we watched. It was a number of things that helped my really but even though I am a photoshop junkie the combustion interface makes more sense the After Effects to me.

#18

hey dude…be friendly with the vfx industry…millions are here to help u.to learn combustion,first of all u need to get a detailed idea about the industry.its great that u hav a good deal with photoshop.that will help a lot in combustion.anyway comb. is a vfx software,and u are able to learn a lot of vfx softwares.probably the first one is adobe after effects.it is much user-friendly than comb.a large number of tools are similar but the application may be different.just check it in the ‘help’ option(press F1)tools are revealed there.first u got an idea how a vfx software works,then its simple.there are a lot of books available in the market,and video tutorials-also downloadables-are available in net like fxguide.com …so go ahead…good luck!!

#19

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