November 30, 2007

Autodesk Releases Combustion 2008 Desktop Compositing Software

San Rafael, Calif. - Autodesk Inc. announced AutodeskCombustion 2008 software, the latest version of its desktop compositing and visual effects solution.
Combustion provides digital media artists an easy-to-use interface, non-destructive workflow, and tool set at the price of $995 (US).
 
It has been used on the Juicy Fruit Ant commercial by Asylum Visual Effects, the Target Anthem ad by Brand New School, and by Zoic Studio on the "Journeyman" television show.
 
The Colour Warper tool, found in the Autodesk Flame visual effects system, has been added to Combustion 2008. The new release also includes improvements to the schematic view. The Colour Warper in Combustion 2008 performs primary and selective color correction. It also enables precise fine-tuning with multiple levels of adjustment in a single pass. 
 
Colour Warper features: 
- Interactive adjustment of gamma, gain, offset, hue, saturation, and contrast
- Intuitive hue shift and a tint color wheel for fast, accurate color balancing and a visual color sampling palette for precise color matching
- Interactive Histogram and curves editing modes for subtle, precision tweaking of color components
- Independent controls for color correcting the image's shadow, midtone, and highlight regions
- "Match" feature for fast scene-to-scene color correction
- "Selective" feature for sampling up to three different color regions for isolated correction
- User interface features: high-quality RGB vector scope, and a 3D histogram for precise color monitoring
 
Autodesk anticipates that Combustion 2008 will be available in December 2007. The 2008 release will be supported on Macintosh and Windows operating systems. Autodesk suggested retail pricing is $995*. The suggested upgrade price from Combustion 4 to Combustion 2008 is $199*.
 
* International pricing may vary.