Finally.
A press release came across the wire announcing Combustion 2008 for Macintosh and Windows. While a full list of features wasn’t provided with the release, it did make mention of the addition of the Colour Warper from flame.
Click through to read the press release…..
Autodesk, Inc. today announced Autodesk Combustion 2008 software, the latest version of its desktop compositing and visual effects solution. Combustion offers digital media artists an easy-to-use interface, non-destructive workflow and extensive toolset at the affordable price of US$995*. It has been used on the Juicy Fruit Ant commercial by Asylum Visual Effects, the Target Anthem ad by Brand New School, and by Zoic Studio on the Journeyman television show. The popular Colour Warper tool, found in the Autodesk Flame visual effects system, has been added to Combustion 2008. The new release also includes improvements to the schematic view.
The Colour Warper in Combustion 2008 performs primary and selective color correction. It also allows for precise fine-tuning with multiple levels of adjustment in a single pass. Â Colour Warper features include:
* Interactive adjustment of gamma, gain, offset, hue, saturation, and contrast
* Intuitive hue shift and a tint color wheel for fast, accurate color balancing and a visual color sampling palette for precise color matching
* Interactive Histogram and curves editing modes for subtle, precision tweaking of color components
* Independent controls for color correcting the image’s shadow, midtone, and highlight regions
* “Match” feature for fast scene-to-scene color correction
* “Selective” feature for sampling up to three different color regions for
isolated correction
* User interface features: high-quality RGB vector scope, and a 3D histogram for precise color monitoring
Pricing and Availability
Autodesk anticipates that Combustion 2008 will be available in December 2007. The 2008 release will be supported on Macintosh and Windows operating systems. Autodesk suggested retail pricing is US$995*. The suggested upgrade price from Combustion 4 to Combustion 2008 is US$199*.
*International pricing may vary.
For more information on Combustion 2008, please visit www.autodesk.com/combustion.
wow thats cool! I used the color warper on flame a few times and its really powerful.. each release of combustion seems to take tools from flame.. a few more versions of combustion and you could have a desktop flame (minus the realtime hardware of course)…
Your joking aren’t you?? US$200 for the color warper which already exists as the daimond keyer, this is no upgrade it’s a furfy.
AutoDesk should be studied in universites on how not to run a CRM division, they have had a press release and still have not upgraded their website.
What a disaster Toxic and Combustion have become…… What will become of AutoDesk?
With this speed of upgrades, Autodesk will put flame’s desktop in Combustion v2058
I’m surprised you think Flame/Combustion will be around past 2012.
mmmhh….how about extended bicubic and bicubic ? are they inside too ?…..but it’d be good with colour warper. Cool progress from autodesk – thought is dead !
well you say that Enog.. but many studios have intergrated combustionin their compositing pipeline. Yes you are right it probably wont live past another year or 2 since most people are sticking with AE (as thats getting powerful by the day) and film studios are using Nuke (and shake still).
I remember last year people were saying flame will die out etc but look at todays post houses.. flame is still heavily used and has had a new version too!
Personally I think they should drop Toxic and concentrate on Combustion, Toxic as a product will have to go along way to get the market penetration needed to compete with Nuke and Shake where Combustion already has that presence.
As for Flame it’s still the best compositing package around (Just), but in three years I’d expect that you buy modules instead of FFIandSmoke (Batch, Timeline, Adutio, Tape I/O…..).
Sorry one more thing…. All eyes on Apple at NAB as I believe Motion is coming along very well………..
not a big improvement to combustion. they could/should have updated it with colour warper when combustion 4 came out. i’d like to see the new schematic view. oh and flame will never die. it just kicks too much ass. like chuck norris.
Good news! I think it will be the last release of Combustion now as AE have taken a very very good hold. But one can always hope for the best.
Mainly this means preformence boost for the growing Multi-threading crowd and one can also always hope for a overall revmap of the general interface structure, not that it should be changed but it havent really changed since V1.0 when comparing to other toolsets out there (contra lifetime).
I personally left Combustion a little year ago, and i have no intentions on comming back while i still enjoy having it around on my Workstation from time to time.
Overall since they mention 1 new feature + pricing i guess this is just “another” release..
color warper is a good tool. nothing worth having a new release of combustion for though. i agree with someone up in the discussion who said it’s already there in the daimond keyer. and the discreet color corrector kicks ass anyways. so there isn’t any problem really ever color correctiong in combustion (teamed with the daimond keyer of selections). in fact, i think after effects CC sucks. too many tools, all mixed up, or maybe i’m just not used to it. whereas for flame, i think combution is way cooler than flame, and definately more capable. flame is out-dated.
YES!! I thought development on combustion was dead. Good to see that Autodesk still remembers us poor college students. 🙂
I am glad to see a release for Combustion as well. I guess we will see some of these new features demonstrated soon. Ken LaRue (Application Engineer for Combustion/Toxik/Flame) has promised some free tutorials that will be posted on his training website http://www.thestreetproductions.com/ :
He said that the focus of these tutorials will be on showing the new workflow improvements including:
the schematic view
file import
locking viewports for playback
plus an in-depth look at the Colour Warper.
It appears that that what was made known via the press release is it as for the update of Combustion 2008.
I’m happy to see that it is not abandoned but they better have a clear plan to move this app along or they’re just spinning their wheels and wasting money and resources. I’d rather they just fold the tent than play expensive games. The playing field is a much more competitive environment with the likes of Apple’s Final Cut Studio (ie. Motion 3) and Adobe’s creative suite coming along powerfully. Not to mention, I think that a serious Bomb will be dropped soon with the new iteration of Shake that will no doubt emerge either in a future release of Motion or a new Shake-like release.
I guess that I expect more from a billion dollar outfit than what I’ve seen from the Media and Entertainment part of Autodesk. They could use some help in Customer Relationship Management. Apple and Adobe definitely has that piece mastered.
In the end, I will look at the tutorials and see if I want to throw $200 to keep Combustion relative in my toolkit.
hi,
It great to see Combustion 2008..But waiste of money in … US$995* to pay.
Actually after seeing what the “improvements” are on C* 2008 I would have preferred that they drop it and kick in Toxic, improved with some of the features that c* has right now.
This is somehow halfhearted… having 2 “incomplete” Apps running on Windows. Strategy is not really Autodesks strength :o(
Totally agree, although I think they should rename combustion to toxik, and take the good things out of toxik and put them into combustion as it already has market presence.
It’s going to be really hard to get people away from Fusion/Shake/Nuke/AE/Motion/Flame/Smoke/Flint/JahSaka…… and onto a brand new product thats taking years to develop.
autodesk should dump everything execpt inferno and kick out a somewhat software-online-version of it. this no-features releases of combustion, toxik, smoke, maya and max start to make people more and more sick, especially me – that`s why I never bought anything from them.
I see the Combustion update as a confirmation from AME that they are still committed to developing it and that they do not intend to make the same mistakes as with Edit again. From what I read on the internet so far, most of the Combustion developers worked on Toxik, so they had only limited time and resources for this release of Combustion. It probably did not take too much effort to integrate the Color Warper since it is a separate module (meaning they didn’t have to re-test the entire application). Plus, it is a great feature that already existed in FFI and therefore did not have to be coded and tested from the ground up. My bet is that the next release will be more advanced with more changes to the actual application and we won’t have to wait for it as long as for this one. And $200 is pretty affordable for a feature like the color warper if you ask me.
Since some people have suggested dropping Toxik in favor of Combustion: From a technical perspective, Toxik is vastly superior to Combustion. The entire software architecture is much more modern and flexible than anything else on the market, including FFI. Taking the stuff from Toxik and porting it to the Combustion architecture would be a huge step backwards in my opinion. There is a reason why Toxik took so long to develop. It’s just a matter of time until they catch up with the rest of the solutions feature-wise.
And remember, Toxik is by no means just a compositing software, it is a platform. They could easily add a high-end editing module, or even integrate Maya directly into the application with a status equal to the compositing module. That’s close to impossible with any other compositing package. If you ask me, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg with Toxik, and I hope that the market will accept it so that AME can take advantage of the great technical potential of the application.
I think that AME deserves praise for the fact that they had the guts to design a new application from the ground up and make it as good as possible, whereas other companies just fix their existing products as long as they can. It’s like building a house: You can add stuff to an existing building that has a weak foundation without it breaking down, but at a certain point it is better and more elegant to design a new one with a firm foundation. The earlier you make that decision, the better.
Oh, and I don’t think anyone on this planet is using Jahshaka for anything, and suggesting that it is in *any* way close (or even superior) to Toxik is just ridiculous, no offense.
Hey Peter, My Jahshaka comment was a joke.
And what I’m suggesting is put all the good things in combustion into the toxik, drop toxik as a name, dropping combustion as a product and renaming toxik to combustion as you already have market peno. Then sell an ‘Upgrade’ to Combustion2008 to the new product as you have a huge user base already.
Toxik is a marketing disaster, I really enjoy using it but I think locking it into a database was a very bad decision even though thats changed now take up is going to be really slow, try getting a few toxik freelancers, it’s not as easy as you might think, where as nuke, shake, AE and combustion are alot easier. People don’t want to learn 6 peices of software, they want to learn two or three really well.
I think, just by looking at AutoDesks website that there main focus is the 3D world (and rightfully so) and there compositing side is secondary.
I have taught with Combustion (University) , but am now purchasing 68 seats of Toxik 2008. I agree with Peter: Toxik does indeed seem vastly superior to Combustion. I applaud Autodesk for its willingness to make Toxic accessable to educational institutions like mine. Hopefully the userbase will expand as students take their Toxik smarts into the workplace. I should also mention that it runs better on even a simple gaming pc than Combustion ever did. Now, if only Autodesk could update their tutorials to 2008, from 2007…
Which University James?
This is what I mean about toxik, no mention:
http://www.fxguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5852
Just watch you don’t end up with 68 people who know a piece of software that hardly any post house uses.
Personally, I was waiting for something more spectacular with this new combustion… I think Discreet is loosing a lot of positions in the low-cost postproduction aplication’s race… There were a lot of things on combustion that needed to be revised first… of course it’s just my opinion… and I’m just a user.
Sad to say the new version of C* has me more than a bit flustered and puzzeled. After being a long time supporter I have to I am sad to say make the switch back to After Effects as Toxic is fast but frankly incomplete compared to C* and for some strange reason not as friendly with Max as Maya (my studio runs both but I am a Max guy and the main compositor). After Effects has a suiet and frankly the little bit of bang that does add is enough to make me switch. I dunno what they where thinking they may own the 3d side of the industry in a foot hold but with stumbles like the roll out of C* here if anyone builds a even 15% better mousetrap they won’t even be a company any more will they? How in the heck did Adobe the slowest company on earth start to get so far ahead? My guess fear of Appelborg assimliation. Who are the barbarians for Aurodesk to fear?
Autodesk should take solace in the statement – I have seen the enemy and it is me.
The deal with Combustion that this is a tool for unfair fight with business competitors not a serious proposition for a market. Most of Combustion’s copies come as a addition to others softwares. TO put it simply Autodesk must have a contr-product for AFX or Fusion since from a strategic point of view they can not abandon this segment of the market. Thus you can have Combustion for $300 in addition to Max or Cleaner, you get it and you are with them not Adobe.
The point is that sometimes to have a strategy mean to keep half-dead project like Combustion.
It’s really good for them.
I wouldn’t agree that Autodesk sucks in strategies. They are actually very good at it!
No one seriously involved in compositing consider C* as a main tool for its facility. One buy flame, or Nuke, or Toxic. I agree that Toxic is a very promising investment for future and I wouldn’t be worry about its present on market. The only tool ready to handle incoming realtime compositing (aside with Apple’s new child) is Toxic… that’s a deal.
cheers,
SYmek.
I think that Toxik will gain a lot of popularity once the Mac version gets released (a technology demo is planned for Mac World San Francisco some time in January as far as I know).
But if you ask me, they should offer a free downloadable trial version of Toxik like the one they offer for Combustion, or even a Personal Learning Edition (eyeon Fusion has one, too, I believe). Once people can see for themselves how great the thing really is, I think they will be more willing to accept it as an alternative to more established compositing packages. Plus it would allow artists to learn the software at no cost, so it would be easier to find freelancers.
But while we’re discussing name changes: If I had the choice, I’d rather have them call themselves Discreet Logic again than rename Toxik to Combustion, but neither of that is going to happen.