Combustion - 2008

If you have Adobe After Effects as part of your production workflow then you should have this program as well. While doing many of the same things Combustion takes them to the next level. It is not as easy to use as After Effects but patience will be rewarded. The particle tools are absolutely great and the included particle effect settings may be all you even need. Make realistic water falls with water cascading off of rocks present in the video footage where there was no water at all, to fire breathing dragons or people to weapons fire and transporter effects it is all in this package.

When you start creating your own particles and other effects in this program you get to the real power of the program. I used to have both After Effects and Combustion installed but finding that I used Combustion to overcome problems I was having in AE then AE was removed to clear up drive space!

My only wish for this program is that they should include many more presets....the last big upgrade from version 2 to version 3 included hardly any new presets. Most users will make their own anyway but it would be nice to have these to kick out quick effects and give as some different viewpoints and startpoints for our own.

port 3ds max to the mac platform!

should be noticing is that Combustion is selling for $995. Until two months ago (or so) this was priced at $5000. If Combustion is worth $995, then AfterEffects s worth $995...for the full production suite. I began on Illuminaire, the product that BECAME Combustion, and this program, in it's current iteration, is nothing short of phenomenal. When I saw the price drop in a bundle (deal was announced in late Nov, I think) I thought that...thanks to Apple's acquisition of Shake-Tremor...that Discreet might drop the Mac development. Thank goodness they appear not to have. Hey, I paid $800 just for my 2.x upgrade (before the price change)! This product kicks AE's butt in many ways that count to pros. IN fact, if particle effects as good as Combustion's were available for AfterEffects (and they're NOT) this plug-in set alone would cost $500. AE now has the ability to independently effect multiple 3D channels, but only via a ElectricFX plug-in ($100). Combustion's had that forever. AE users...time to add another (more professional) program to your compositing suite~!

these people finally offering SOMETHING to the mac... too bad it's not 3DS MAX. This is kinda like if you lived somewhere that "The Matrix" wasn't ever made available (for whatever reason), and then some other movie comes out "from the makers of The Matrix". Well, that's nice and all, but c'mon, give us the real thing!