The history of combustion has more twists and turns than a Cornish country road. Way back in ‘97, the world leader in high-end compositing, editing and image manipulation systems for visual effects, Discreet Logic, forced its way into the NT market with the acquisition of Denim Software. The cost effective reliability of NT was making it the platform of choice for many studios, and Discreet Logic could no longer afford to ignore this. At the time, Denim was paving the way forward in compositing solutions on NT — their prize offering Illuminaire Studio was an instant hit with smaller effects and postproduction facilities.

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Within a year Illuminaire Studio became two separate packages: paint and effect, each retailing at around £1,500 (2,153 Euros, $2,000). Not only was this Discreet Logic’s bold journey onto the NT platform, it was a step into the world of desktop visual effects software. Previously Discreet Logic’s high-end systems such as flint, flame and inferno had been restricted to the domain of the specialist SGI workstation. But now one of the leading developers of compositing systems in the world was releasing a more accessible package. These were exciting times!

A couple of years passed and by the new millennium Discreet Logic had been acquired by Autodesk, and was now known as Discreet. By the end of the year, paint and effect were no more, and a new package — combustion — had taken their place (are you still with me?). combustion promised to be the holy grail for desktop compositors — and it certainly was as close as we’d ever been! The integrated paint and compositing tools improved workflow dramatically, and it was even made available on the Mac... but this powerful tool came at a price. Discreet had released combustion at a whopping £3,845 (4,995 Euros, $4,995). Adobe’s solution to desktop compositing, After Effects, looked far more appetizing at less than a quarter of the price!

Then, halleluiah! It’s 2003 and Discreet drop the price of combustion to a mere £745 (995 Euros, $995) with the release of version 2.1. Windows and Mac-based effects and postproduction studios the world over finally have a reason to crack open the Dom Perignon. It seems there is a desktop compositing god after all!

Decisions, Decisions…
combustion is now situated bang in the middle of a fiercely competitive market dominated hugely by After Effects and, well, After Effects. These must be worrying times for Adobe — a quick glance at combustion’s feature list and AE starts to look rather pale in comparison. 3D compositing, particle effects and motion tracking as standard; strong integration with 3ds studio max; an award-winning industry standard interface and workflow; not to mention the lure of the high-end market-leading Discreet brand. combustion shapes up like a brand new Mercedes Benz with all the trimmings for the price of a second hand ‘98 Honda Accord. Decisions, decisions indeed…

The combustion interface is very similar to that of high-end systems such as flint, flame and inferno.

Tuition and Intuition
Like all of Discreet’s compositing software, combustion has a very unique interface and workflow unlike any other package on the market. This means pretty much anyone purchasing a copy of the software will be treading on new ground. Luckily the user guide and tutorials are extremely well written and comprehensive, and once you start poking around you’ll find that combustion is extremely intuitive. If you have a basic understanding of compositing workflow and know what you’re looking for, finding it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge even without referring back to the manuals.

But what should make combustion all the more appealing to students, hobbyists and smaller studios is the fact that this award-winning interface is carried on throughout all of Discreet’s products. Moving from combustion onto an industry standard high-end system such as inferno or flame shouldn’t be too much of a struggle. This is a huge selling point that is often overshadowed by combustion’s impressive feature list.