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| Combustion's amazing keyer handles even difficult DV footage with ease. |
Having used After Effects for many years I was initially confused by Combustion’s way of handling layers and composites. Ironically, the fact that only the right tools are available made navigation a little confusing at first. I guess I was just used to doing things the hard way. But thanks to the great composite artist Erik Dehkhoda’s help, it took me just a few minutes to understand the overall concept behind the interface and, from then on, it was very smooth sailing. In fact, this interface becomes very addicting once you get used to it. Going back to other programs can become quite frustrating. Combustion simplifies things to the point where they don’t take away any “brain cycles”. To create keyframes, for example, all you have to do is select the Animate button. It turns red, much like the Record button on a VCR, acting as a good visual reminder that whatever changes you perform will be recorded. As long as the button is activated, your actions will be saved as keyframes. Make changes, advance to the next desired frame and make other changes. That’s it – you’ve got an animation. Just remember to deselect the button when you are done, or you’ll keep on recording more keyframes. But even if that happens, you can always delete those from your history or even access the timeline and delete them from there. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Combustion 2 adds a Schematic View to the interface - a flowchart-style view that makes it easier for the user to visualize the compositing process. It also enables you to turn on and off elements and even re-wire them by breaking and re-arranging connections. The interface also includes a filmstrip for visual access to any frame.
The canvas may be split into several views, enabling the user to work directly on a matte, for example, while simultaneously seeing the end result on the final composite. Especially useful to those working on projects that will end up on video is Combustion’s ability to utilize a PAL or NTSC device to display your work on a video monitor. That way you can see what the final results will look like on video as you go, which is much better than relying solely on the computer monitors. This feature works great with my Matrox RTMac and supports other Apple and PC cards.
Virtually every operation you perform in Combustion becomes part of a history branch. This enables you to go back at any time and tweak individual objects and operators. It also enables you to copy, group, delete and perform other operations on them. A good example of this versatility is how Combustion handles its improved text toolset. Whenever you type some text, each individual character is saved as an object under the main text object. You can then access each character individually and tweak it as you wish.
One of the strongest components in Combustion is its very comprehensive color correction toolset. The quality of the processing is amazing – definitely very high end. Color and luminance manipulations are smooth, extremely precise and artifact-free. The color correction interface is also very intuitive, especially for those with backgrounds as colorists. There are lots of small, powerful touches designed to save time and produce excellent results. The match color tool is a good example, letting you automatically match the overall color and luminance qualities of a foreground element to the background it’s being composited on. All you have to do is use a color picker and the layers end up matching each other very well, saving lots of hard work. Another thing I like is the ability to compare your color corrected image to another by simply dragging a rectangle over the image or by using a split screen.
Color correction may be applied in a variety of ways, including a color wheel, histogram, curves, ranges and sliders.
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