A Swiss Army Knife of Pro VFX Tools

The more I work with Combustion 4, the harder it is to review. It just
does so many things, so well, and I have such little space. In simple
terms, Combustion 4 is Autodesk’s way of bringing you top drawer,
affordable VFX compositing technology based on its Discreet line of
high-end systems. Autodesk refers to Combustion 4 as its "all-in-one
professional compositing application." And the company doesn’t just
mean 2D compositing, but 3D as well.
Workflow
Combustion 4 provides well-researched, efficient workflows and a
uniquely flexible interface that, once you learn how to use it, will
provide the creative tools and processes you need to create just about
anything you can think of in moving images. The biggest workflow time
factor is slow re-caching in RAM every time you make a change. However,
with DI (Digital Intermediate) processing and Panavision’s Genesis
digital camera system galloping onto the scene, Combustion 4’s enormous
tool set is a treasure. Thank heaven for the excellent schematic view,
which helps me figure out how in hell I ended up with what I’ve got at
any given moment. It gives me immediate access to any point in the tree
for adjustments. However, because of all this depth, and clever
interfacing, expect a serious learning curve.
Architecture
Flexibility is the word. Everything seems to be pluggable into everything else, anywhere on the timeline.
The system architecture is resolution independent in any format from
Flash to HD and feature film. You can mix and match different image
resolutions and color bit depths as well. RAM caching speeds play back
so you can work interactively with multiple processes at or near real
time. And I’m pretty sure Combustion uses GPU power, if you’ve got it,
to animate real-time particle displays as you work with them
interactively.
Interoperability
Few reviews say much about interoperability, but it’s a key factor
here. Combustion 4 can act like an extension of 3ds Max. It imports
target cameras as.ase files and Max’s RPF/RLA files complete with
extended channel information for controlling various post operations.
This includes stuff like depth and mask information. With it you can
re-light a scene after the fact and do 3D depth compositing. In fact,
you can even use imbedded RPF/RLA camera information to control
Combustion’s camera movement and orientation for 3D compositing. 3ds
Max and Combustion are so tightly integrated you can actually paint
directly into Max viewports using Combustion paint tools.
Combustion also hooks directly into the Discreet systems’ high-end
pipeline flawlessly exchanging masks, along with keyer and color
corrector and tracker data, plus film tools like grain and color LUTs
(Look Up Tables) with Discreet Lustre, Discreet Inferno, Discreet
Flame, Discreet Flint, Discreet Fire and Discreet Smoke. Smooth.
Adobe Photoshop works well with Combustion 4. In fact, most of those
millions of Photoshop filters plug right in and Combustion reformats
them to work seamlessly within your work environment, adding
key-frameable value changes to boot.
And talk about I/O support! With FireWire DV controls, all popular
image and animation formats, and 10-bit Cineon formats (paint/rotoscope
directly in 10-bit without conversion,) and with OpenEXR export, forget
external conversion programs. Of course NTSC/PAL and HDTV formats are
supported with field rendering and 3:2 pull down interpolation with
automatic phase detection-handy. You can import Photoshop CS2's .psd
layer files with individual layers conveniently separated for
compositing. Import and edit Adobe Illustrator files with gradients and
layers, as resolution-independent components for your flash animations.
It just goes on and on.
Operators
Operators are your plug-in tools. You work in Combustion by creating
image/time manipulation processes by applying operators to a single
layer, a composite anywhere in a process branch. To do this you access
the operators you want from professional color correction to point
tracking and particles, to diamond keying. Many operators can be used
to control others. For example, an expression operator might control
the path of a tracked particle emitter spinning in a helix around an
actor's head, as a tracked mask hides the dripping sparkles as they fly
"behind" his head. It also allows you to add the Time Warp operator to
make it look like he's walking through water. There is an operator for
just about anything you need to do and they are quality tools. What I
mean by that is, the tracker is taken directly from Discreet Flame and
the color correction system is from Discreet Lustre.
Check the side bar for a representative list of operators. You access
these through a flexible, customizable interface. Set it up the way you
work best. The schematic access interface shows how all the operators
are interconnected and gives you direct access to relevant parameters.
Everything can be key-framed as well. Complex custom processes can be
encapsulated and saved for future projects. It's a lot like Photoshop
actions. I expect to see web sites with downloadable Combustion
capsules of all descriptions.
The fantastic context sensitive work areas help enormously because you
only see the settings you need. It's all very complicated, but
Discreet/Autodesk has done an amazing job of making it workable.
Summary
I think the amazing number of excellent, well-implemented tools and the
fine performance of Combustion 4 have left us all feeling like we're
getting way more than our money's worth. You absolutely must use a
powerful computer with plenty of RAM, however. The particle effects
alone are worth the price of admission, or the color correction, or any
one of the keyers. In fact, each only represents about two percent of
the entire package.
However, that steep learning curve I mentioned before is serious, and
is exacerbated by the enormous depth of layering and interdependencies
you can develop as you work. When you get into this thing you'll find
yourself creating amazingly complex processes controlled by
expressions, tracking, key frames and previous operations. I highly
recommend you take time to truly learn Combustion in depth. You will
not regret one second of your effort. The one very serious and totally
thorough training course I must recommend is the Combustion 4 Training
DVD's from TSP (The Street Productions, www.thestreetproductions.com).
Ken LaRue and friends have done a masterful job of laying out virtually
every aspect of Combustion in more than 20 hours of instruction on five
DVDs, with source material included. The series is an absolute bargain
at around $300.
With release 4, Autodesk has truly given us a wonderful, professional gift.