Combustion or After Effects for VRay

[Infrared digital]

Are there any plugins that give AE the same colour adjustment abilities as Combustion ?

[joconnell]

You have the same colour adjustment abilities from the top - the only difference is the way they're presented. The discreet colour corrector with its wheel is very friendly to use - here's something that will get your part of the way there - http://prolost.blogspot.com/2005/06/...-in-after.html

Also you get a plugin called colour finesse with the production bundle of after effects which is a huge grading suite and far more capable than the discreet colour grader and works like a telecine or an online grading suite - again easier to use. If you're comfortable with photoshops hue/saturation, levels, curves and colour balance then you're fine. Personally i'd recommend a few bits - I do a lot of vfx work so composite wizard is really good - it's got a lightning fast blur and a few other bits for integrating cg into live action, frischlufts lenscare and flair do really nice glows, depth of field effects and blurs and knoll light is great for lens flares.

[Infrared digital]

Thanks man, much appreciated information.

Where did you study CG or did you learn it in a studio ?

[panthon]

What about this gossip about combustion being discontinued?
Some talk about a toxicombustion new product...removing the crap from toxic and revamping the good things from combustion...

[joconnell]

Thanks man, much appreciated information.

Where did you study CG or did you learn it in a studio ?

Just read everything I could on any program on the net and then got a lot better by working in a post house the past 6 years. If you're new to comping, buy a copy of the art and science of digital compositing - the chapter on integration techniques is a must.

[studioDIM]

sheesh i missed this post entirely, but i have to say it's been so very useful to dig through.
I was left with using AE6.0 in production (3d compositing of hundreds over hundreds of elements...what a "£$%ing nightmare that was!) last time around, and would have NEVER got around any new version myself.
As things stand, i am looking for a demo version...

I personally did a LOT of different work on combustion, and found it priceless, as well as pricelessly STUPID at times
I painted, rig-removed, graded, keyed, VFXed, HDRI comped and so on and so forth with it, making AE a bad dream dissolved in the morning.
It has all the bugs described (color clamping of hdrs when premultiplying, for the last TWO versions, lol, plus a few that rear their head when you're with a packed project, out of time and out of ram...), but it's been around from Max 2 or thereabout (it was two, before: pain(t) + effects), so the integration is pretty tight with the 3d package.
It can do some things really well, quickly and neatly, others can do with some inventiveness, others can't do at all.
But that can also be said of AE, or any USER, for that matter

I find shake so very good for compositors which are only compositors.
I can't be thinking i have to multiply an rgb image by its alpha to get some transparency all the time, so to speak.
But that's personal.
All the Shakers i found so far were extremely good SHAKERS, not compositors, but never you mind, i hear there are some good ones around...
Cheap is cheap, including a bloody laptop with the tool too!

Lele

[mike_kennedy]

I used to be a Combustion guy but after working with AE for the last 3 years I find AE faster in so many ways, not better so much, but faster. By this i means working with 30 layers, some thing I do frequently. In AE this is a breeze with a large enough screen. All your layers have their own area to work on and the short cuts for navigating and moving clips around are fast.
I do mostly motion Graphics though so the experience of a Film guy might differ greatly, but most people I know doing film are using Dicreet sysmtems, Shake or Fusion and more and more are using Nuke.
Really depends on your focus. Things I really miss in AE vs Combustion though are the color tools and the keyers and good RRF support.
Cheers
Mike