Although Combustion 2's name would suggest that it is a product enjoying its first upgrade, it actually has survived a long history in animation and special effects. Starting its life as Denim Software's Illuminaire Studio, it had two modules, Paint, an innovative and fully featured vector-based video painting program, and Effect, an equally innovative 3D compositing system. The company and the software was bought by discreet, and after an initial release, both packages were retooled to fit in with their ultra high-end compositing product line including, Flint, Flame and Inferno.

Image courtesy of discreet.

Much has been made of the original Combustion's integration with the high-end products. A number of effects houses use Combustion as an offline tool to do pre-composition work to later fit in with that high-end pipeline. However, looking at the core of the product shows an invaluable tool for animation work.

Combustion gives animators the ability to create, modify and enhance an animation sequence in an intuitive manner that can be a joy to use. An important part of any software package is its ability to serve the user as opposed to the user serving it. The interface shouldn't get in the way of the job that the software is supposed to do. This is true for any software, from word processors to games to animation packages. Granted, if any software is useful or unique enough, people will take the time to learn it and deal with its foibles, but that leads to a steep learning curve. Combustion's interface is the result of years of evolution working with a very dedicated group of artists, and it shows. Pick a tool, and the interface changes so that you've got everything you need right in front of you. Choose one of a number of viewport setups and you've got your image presented to you at different stages of its creation.

So let's break it down into what Combustion can do for you.

Creating With Combustion
Combustion has a near-great vector-based painting toolset. When used with a graphics tablet there is a wealth of possibilities at your command. Since each brushstroke is a vector object, it can be animated over time. While this sounds good on paper, the question of its practicality arises: why would you want to animate each brushstroke? You may want to have a bunch of strokes forming themselves into the final picture, or you may want to group your strokes together, say for a tree or a bush, and then animate the leaves. Since the brushes aren't limited to just painting functions, you have the ability to animate the position of, say, a smear, enabling you to create waves lapping up against a shore.

As I said, you are not limited to painting functions. Combustion gives you 40 (!) different modes to work with when you are painting. You can start with a paint layer, smear the colors together to get rid of angular, flat vector looks; dodge or burn your highlights, mid-tones and shadows; and add lighting effects to any portion of your painting that you wish. What makes the paint toolset "near-great" instead of great is its inability to create custom brushes beyond the basic elliptical and rectangular brushes. I would appreciate the ability to create patterned or image-based brushes in this interface. Also, Combustion doesn't yet take advantage of the angle features in some graphics tablets. This may seem to be a minor point, but seeing as how Combustion is so geared to work with graphics tablets, you would think that they would be more on top of new innovations.

Hand-drawn animating with Combustion and a graphics tablet is also a treat. Its fast response and onion skinning tools make it possible to create high quality animations and quick pencil tests. By using different composition branches in the same timeline, you could conceivably create a single file where you could include your storyboard, pencil tests and cleaned work in a neat little package. For short pieces, commercials or individual scenes, this is a very nice feature.

If you are working with scanned images, Combustion can be used as a painting package, but it won't give you some of the specific features of a dedicated package like Animo. However, what it does give you in the way of paint tools is great, and the compositing tools are amazing.