combustion 4

Discreet today announced , the highly anticipated upgrade to its visual effects software solution. combustion will feature a complete set of sophisticated tools for visual effects creation, including vector paint, particles, effects, animation and 3D compositing tools. Version 4.0 provides motion graphics and compositing artists new creative capabilities, interface improvements, new paint tools and enhanced interoperability with most 3D animation products including to Discreet’s industry-leading 3ds max animation software, and Discreet’s cleaner encoding software and its systems products including flint flame, inferno, fire and smoke.

Key new features in combustion 4 include:

• Discreet’s Diamond Keyer -- the second generation of sophisticated keying algorithms derived from flame, Discreet’s Academy Award-winning online visual effects system. The Diamond Keyer adds a new level of advanced keying technology to the capabilities already available to combustion users via the Discreet Keyer.




• Time-Warp -- a fully key-frameable, time-remapping operator for quickly creating slow motion and speed-up effects



• B-spline vector shapes and new point-grouping for faster, more efficient rotoscoping
  
• New optimized ’Fast Gaussian Blur’.



• Custom capsules -- create and save encapsulated single or grouped operator nodes.



• Gbuffer builder -- enables custom building of Discreet’s Rich Pixel Format (RPF) data structures from bitmap files for more extensive use of combustion’s RPF nodes.



• Merge operator -- new optimized operator to quickly merge 2 layers of the same size using any of combustion’s transfer nodes.



• Numerous UI enhancements including edit -- operator, navigation, filtering and compare tool improvements.



• New file import/export options -- import of images into color mixer, import ASE (ASCII Scene Export) camera targets from 3ds max, import Windows Media, Open EXR compatible output.



• Enhanced paint -- new paint tools, grids & rulers, Bspline in paint and new customized brushes.



• Ability to read media directly from Discreet stone file-systems for
  enhanced interoperability with Discreet’s online systems: inferno,
  fire, smoke, flame, flint and backdraft.

combustion 4 is expected to be available for Mac in May 2005. combustion 4 will sell for $1,000; upgrade pricing from combustion 3 to combustion 4 software will be $250. Customers who purchase a full commercial or educational seat of combustion 3 software between announcement date and the shipping date, can qualify for a free upgrade to combustion 4.

by MacNN Staff