Combustion V.4 promises desktop effects shop

Post, March, 2005 by Ken McGorry

NEW YORK -- Discreet Combustion experts were in town recently showing off the upgrades for V.4 of Combustion, the company's visual effects software. Combustion 4 aims to take full broadcast-quality effects creation where it's never gone before: the desktop. Not that After Effects and others have not put out excellent compositing and effects software for desktop use, but Combustion 4 is promising more than we're used to seeing in one software program, and for a price that's actually four dollars less than Adobe's MSRP for its professional package.

Combustion 4 offers vector paint, particles, effects, animation and 3D compositing tools for $995. The upgrade has enhanced interoperability with 3D animation programs--most obviously with Discreet's (www.discreet.com) own 3DS Max--as well as Discreet's Cleaner encoding software and its full line of high-end compositing and editing systems.

Kenneth Larue, a Discreet application engineer, demonstrated the new Combustion on his laptop for Post magazine and it does provide a convincing answer to the riddle "will you ever be able to do broadcast design right from your desktop?"

The product will be available in May and works on both Mac and PC. It's aimed at motion graphics and compositors who want faster workflow throughput and other interface improvements along with the promised paint and effects upgrades.

In addition to the new paint tools, Combustion 4's new features include Discreet's Diamond Keyer (derived from Flame); a fully keyframeable Time Warp; custom-encapsulated operator nodes; faster rotoscoping with B-spline vector shapes; a new "fast Gaussian blue" and more. The software has lots of UI enhancements; new file export/import options, including Open EXR; and, of course, the ability to read media from Discreet's Stone file systems.

So where does all that position Combustion 4 in relation to After Effects? Discreet publicly states that Combustion, thanks to its interoperability, is a value-added tool that enhances the experience for AE's myriad users. But their hope is that Combustion 4 will inspire many users to consider switching their allegiance altogether.