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combustion v after effects

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I've been doing some reading and it would seem to my inexperienced eye that after effects and combustion do the same things.

ie mask, rotoscope, matte, composite etc.

I've AE 6 and will try getting a book at the weekend to learn how to use it to some extent. Isense a starfield and travelling matte in my future soon. but the work mebe has done in combustion is impressive.

anyone care to offer an opinion on which is better and why? be it easier to use, better plugins, easier interface etc.

would be interested to know. seeing as I have after effects, need I bother getting combustion if all I want to do is some rotoscoping, a basic matte to fix the starfield and some compositing so I can combine elements from two different captures.

I'm less bothered about fixing spots and tears, but if it's easy enough in after effects, it might be worth fixing some of the more glaring ones in ANH.
When a woman says yes, she means no - when she says maybe, she means no.

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Laserman would have to answer this, as I've only used Combustion, and I know he's used both. I've done some matting in Vegas, but I've not tried it in Combustion yet. I have played around with remove the "orange glow" under the landspeeder in the Tatooine shot, but I haven't gotten acceptable results with cut/paste, so I'll have to learn how to matte in this program.

"I'm less bothered about fixing spots and tears, but if it's easy enough in after effects, it might be worth fixing some of the more glaring ones in ANH."

Yeah, I'm getting too anal for my own good about the little spots, but Combustion makes it sooooo damn easy, it's not even funny.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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AE seems to have more problems dealing with MPEG2, in my experience, although I find the tools easier to use and adjust in AE.
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Interesting. I was playing on toying with the Han/Greedo scene on the SW DVDs, but I was going to save the footage in HuffyAV first. When finished, I was going to recompile in Vegas in the highest bit-rate possible.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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hey guys, new here... i work in high end video. bang for your buck, combustion is superior software. i use both on a regular basis and honestly they are essentially the same thing. combustion, however, is a *far* more intuitive program and has several modules that are unbeatable: the discreet color corrector, the discreet keyer, masking, and the tracker. after effects, unfortunately, is WAY faster on the Mac OS than Combustion... so if I'm in a rush, I'll use it instead.
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If you are on the PC, then combustion is the ducks guts, I'd use it over AE anyday for the colour correction and paint tools. I find it more intuitive, but then I was brought up on Infernos and flint/flame systems, so it was already familiar to me I guess.
But like everything it's not perfect, and I have some tools in AE that I still use because I can get the job done faster there. But if I was forced to only use one for the rest of time it would be combustion.
Now that it is sooo cheap it is a much better buy. Oh and BTW, the V4 is looking very nice indeed.

EIther would do the job, but for frame by frame restoration I would only use combustion.
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"I guess I better fire this program up and see what kind of damage I can do."

Well, one example I can think of off the top of my head....

Oh, and it's "duck's nuts".

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Originally posted by: CharlieX
after effects, unfortunately, is WAY faster on the Mac OS than Combustion... so if I'm in a rush, I'll use it instead.


Have you used Motion yet? Any thoughts on it?
Dr.Gonzo
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motion, for $300, is pretty amazing. it's FAST and integrates into Final Cut fairly well. It's not a professional app in my opinion / I woulnd't use it for broadcast or film work. but if you're doing an edit and need to slam out a quick garbage matte or flying title, it might be the best choice for a *quick* composite.

Keyframing isn't as specific or useful as in higher grade apps, and the interface is a little TOO Apple (small buttons, horrible pastel colors, translucent windows).
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not that it makes any difference, but when we recently put another 2 gigs into this G5, Combustion actually took a major leap in performance. Still is 25-30% slower than Shake or After Effects... hopefully they'll decide to love us one day and recode to optomize for us mac snobs.
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I like to use motion mainly for intro graphics on cd/dvd multimedia stuff, its a quick fix but what it does it does well.

@Charlie X I was thinking about upgrading my vid card 9600 to a 6800gt and maybe upping the ram from 2 to 4gig, any advice? I work mainly with multimedia/DV content atm but am learning shake..slowly



Egon "Don't Cross the streams it would be very bad"

Peter "i'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing"

Egon "lmagine the 97 Star Wars Special Editions"
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i can't speak for the Nvidia 6800.... i don't think it'll give you any huge advantage over the 9600 (unless, of course, you have that monster 30" LCD or work in 3D). Plus it eats up two PCI slots for it's monsterous self. I don't think it would leverage anything for Motion...

Shake gets the best performance with high speed media and cache drives more than anything else - it only uses OpenGL for the interface and all those noodles. I used Shake heavily for 2 years, but honestly, end of day, it was too specialized, and sometimes just a little frustrating (like you have 15 rotomattes you need to shift 5 frames... ugh, what a nightmare.)

I found 4 Gigs of RAM to really improve my workflow... bouncing from Combustion to Final Cut or Cleaner, etc... less time using virtual memory. High Def really like that extra RAM.
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I can second the idea of cramming as much RAM as possible into the MAC - We run 4GB in ours, and it made a huge performance difference over the 1GB we were running previously. Also means I can have everything open at once that I want to use - helps a lot with workflow.
I couldn't live without Shake and its scripting, I can write something in a minute to do things that would be tedious or impossible to do manually in other programs - but it is an acquired taste for sure, and coming from a programming background doesn't hurt either.

As for the graphics card, it helps if you are running at obscene resolutions, but we mainly see the difference in Maya more than anything else.
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Thanks for the advice guys, I kinda like all the noodles/node workflow and I script lingo so that side interests me but more ram is a given.
Off topic but I just picked up a old Kramer Video processor unit and its the dogs danglerlys
Egon "Don't Cross the streams it would be very bad"

Peter "i'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing"

Egon "lmagine the 97 Star Wars Special Editions"