Is it generally possible to use 3rd party plugins that are intended for After Effects in Combustion? If so, how would you go about installing them?
just copy them into the “Plugins” folder of the combustion intallation.
Generally the AE plugins frame is respected, but some (if not most of them) won’t work at 32bpc depth.
Aside from this, and some occasional bug, you should have a pleasant experience 
Lele
some plugins were compiled to work for both combustion and ae
notably the ones sold at www.revisionfx.com
since AE7 has support for exr and hdr images wouldnt that mean that all of its plugins are now 32bit compliant ?
No. For example, some of Photoshop’s filters still don’t work right on 16bit images, even though Photoshop has had “support” for 16bit images for years.
Only a subset of the effects work in full 32bit space actually! Even for the built-in ones
Thorsten
P.S. GREAT Avatar Elf lol
Ya nice avatar! Did you make that yourself?
nah. found it online. seemed to reflect my mood at the time heheh