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Millimeter3 Discreet Combustion 2
May 1, 2002 12:00 PM, BY FRANK McMAHON
Combustion 2 is the latest effort from Discreet to put the power of high-end compositing into the hands of desktop media artists. It allows resolution-independent compositing, animation, effects, and vector painting for video, film, and the Web. Even at only its second version, the product has developed into a rich set of tools and includes some dazzling effects not found elsewhere.
Discreet describes the interface as an “Artists' User Interface.” The first thing new users might notice is how the composed scene is front and center throughout the creation process. It may seem like a natural choice, but some compositing programs bury the user in a sea of sub-menus. Or worse, things get more cluttered with windows as a project progresses.
Combustion 2 does away with Windows and Microsoft Office layouts, and the result is a double-edged sword. Things might not be where you would instinctively expect them in typical Windows programs.
Although the pull-down menus somewhat follow convention and there's generous support for right-click context commands, chances are you'll be starting at zero when you launch into Combustion's learning curve. The upside is when you get a handle on the interface, which really does not take all that long, and things start to make beautiful sense. Rarely do you jump into a sub-screen; the lower third of the interface instinctively changes according to what is happening above. In addition, lots of built-in realtime commands mean that when you, say, add a blue tint to a scene for a cold feel, the footage snaps immediately to the new look without having to render.
The interface is not entirely different from those of most compositing programs; the timeline and option boxes are all there. What is different is how efficient and concise the program feels. I was able to work at 1024×768 and never once felt like menu options were crowded or hard to reach.
The program allows for multi-format productions, meaning that if I want to slide a QuickTime movie in right after an AVI file in the timeline, that's just fine. Combustion works in true 3D space and offers multiple viewpoints, so you can always wheel around your composition and see it from all angles. Spin around the camera and built-in lights and track these to different elements in your scene.
Every part of the scene is listed in flowchart style in the Workspace palette. This allows toggling objects off and on as well as double-clicking to work on an element individually. Support for graphs lets you change items like position, rotation, and velocity.
In addition, the program sports a highly developed paint system for smooth rotoscoping and onion-skinning. Because the paint element is vector-based, changes are a breeze and the creative options for alteration are much more substantial than a bitmap-based paint system would offer. The paint element works in 16bit color mode and can be called up at any time for tasks such as wire removal and image retouching.
This new 2.0 version features several improvements as well as some new features. One of the most impressive new options is a great schematic view that, unlike those of competing programs, allows more than just icons and lines. You can actually preview clips, scrub through movies, and rearrange effect results within this intuitive interface. While some producers may choose to work more organically and ignore this new mode, others will love the top-down view and take advantage of the mechanical way to alter the flow and process of complex effects shots and sequences. This very powerful and extremely flexible new view is definitely worth checking out.
If you are importing filmed material into your timeline, you'll appreciate Combustion's new film tools. Alter the grain and color, or match the rest of your production timeline to a specific grade of film stock. There are even built-in presets for the most popular Kodak film types.
The many built-in particle effects are one of the coolest parts of Combustion 2. If you've used the program, you know what I'm talking about. The new version boasts one of the most elegantly implemented methods for adding effects such as smoke, fire, flashes, weather elements, explosions, and sparkles to your composition.
Rather than a series of disconnected plug-ins, Combustion has a menu of particle effects as well as a completely interactive, detailed preview window of all effects. Slide your mouse around in the preview window for a realtime preview of the effect. And once you add the particle effect to your composition, the preview window animates it in the shape designated in your clip. You could lose a day or two just experimenting with all the various organic particle options and effects. I would encourage that.
Character generation has been bumped up in version 2, with animated presets for rolls, crawls, animation along a path, and many other creative options. With many producers relying on a separate title-generation program, it's good to have a solid suite of text options within Combustion 2. Especially handy is that all on-screen text elements are actually integrated paint objects, meaning you can apply various paint effects such as cloning, texture mapping, and brush effects.
Another option is the ability to handle metadata text. What this offers is a way to update the text externally. For example, change credits on a program, add specifically formatted timecode, or roll in dates — all on the fly, without having to reconstruct the text elements each time.
Also new in Combustion 2, garbage masks are vector shapes that can be inserted to remove unwanted elements such as effects wires and boom mics. They also create stencils of objects and pull them out of (or add them into) live footage.
Finally, Combustion 2 offers robust network rendering direct to a file system, in the background or across a network. You can dump your render queue out to the network and continue to work without affecting the performance of the main creation machine. This new version also supports multi-threading for dual-processor machines and networks.
Combustion 2 features a smooth, natural interface that has obviously been refined to optimize workflow. It almost makes other Windows-based compositing programs seem cobbled-together. While performance was perky on my P4 machine, some areas could stand improvement. Scrubbing bogged down under higher-resolution footage, and RAM previews could have been a little speedier. Thankfully, there are a few ways to knock down the resolution for better results. But I was expecting a little more in realtime, the way Discreet was hyping the latest speed improvements to version 2.
Not unlike an insurance company and traffic tickets, I am willing to let one crash go. Two or more, and we have a problem. I experienced a few abrupt exits, as well as two slowdowns that seemed almost like lockups until the pulse came back a minute or so later. My system runs nonlinear editors and desktop compositing programs under Windows XP without a hitch, so these stumbles were a little disconcerting. Other than that the program didn't flinch the more I pushed it.
The new features really expand Combustion 2's scope, and the particle effects by themselves are just about worth the price of admission. There are enough variables that you can actually execute them in daily use. One factor of the program that might be a problem for some users is the price. At $3,495, Discreet does not seem completely interested in the desktop design boutique or the independent video producer. It's too bad, because a more competitive price would get this product into more hands and considerably open up Discreet's market share.
Not that the program is not worth it. It certainly is. A few drawbacks plague Combustion 2, but mostly it's smooth sailing to powerful effects and expedient workflow. If you can afford it, Combustion 2 is a keeper.
Frank McMahon is a media artist specializing in directing, editing, animation, and graphic design. He can be reached via his media company at www.fmstudio.com or via Portland Media Artists at www.mediaartist.com.
QUICK FACTS
Company: Discreet
Montreal; 800-869-3504
Product: Combustion 2
Features: Strong new particle effects; new top-down schematic view; ramped-up character generation with animated presets; many built-in realtime commands.
Price: $3,495; $1,495 for upgrade Website: www.discreet.com
Web Expanded
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