There is now a powerful Diamond Keyer included in Combustion 4s keying suite, which is a relative to the keying solutions available in Discreets high end, award-winning Flame visual effects system. All parameters have a click-n-slide adjustment function (which Adobe has since incorporated into After Effects) and all numerical values can either be slid up and down or double clicked and entered using the super-cool popup calculator. Combustion also has a wonderful workflow that they have designed so that the artist never (OK, almost never) has to move his/her hands to the keyboard. Specifically, Combustion is moving further and further into the direction of an all-inclusive, one-stop-shop piece of software. Combustion users have always enjoyed the in-program, keyboard free style of the softwares interface. It is really interesting how two companies (Autodesk/Discreet and Adobe) could make such similar products but implement them in such different ways. This in-package solution is one of the concepts that Discreet always got right with this software series. Vfx such as 3D glow, 3D fog, 3D depth of field are now accessible and functional thanks to newly generated Gbuffer information.

Now using the Gbuffer builder, Combustion users can generate simple or complex Gbuffer information from within the software package itself using the new Gbuffer builder Operator.

Traditionally users could impart additional information from 3ds max into renders via the RPF (Rich Pixel Format).

Starting off with some brand new functionality is the Gbuffer builder. This new release focuses on both new tools and revisions to older tools and will satisfy users from casual to hardcore. Autodesk/Discreet has been known to create some of the industrys most compelling and powerful toolsets and their digital compositor/animator/painter/editor software package is no different. I have followed the software since its first release in 2000 and was excited to see the newest revision, Combustion 4, released recently for a price of $995. As a teacher of digital effects and animation at an art school that focuses entirely on Adobes After Effects, I have always been intrigued by the Combustion toolset from Autodesk (formerly Discreet under the new Autodesk Media and Ent.

Internal combustion 4 movie