Hey All,

just a quick question....if you were considering each of these tools from Adobe, Pinnacle, or Discreet, which one has the greatest feature set? I can really only afford one, and they're all in the same ballpark, price-wise, so I was curious if anyone has any experience with one or more of the above, and can speak to the capabilities of each program.

As Always, thanks for the help!!!

Matt

I only have some 3rd party info to pass along.

Recently I was in LA, visiting a friend who works at NBC studios. He graciously arranged to have my traveling companion and myself tour the facilities, including an over-the-shoulder-while-they-work experience with the digital effects folks.

One of their lead (and very talented) designers insisted that while NBC pays for that uber-expensive gear, there was almost nothing he did that couldn't be done in After Effects. He also said that when WB was first getting started, all they had initially was After Effects.

The mega-expensive stuff that NBC uses is expensive because of how they speed up your workflow; thus allowing you to more quickly do very heavy-hitting effects, and timing is key in his fast-paced world at NBC. But After Effects is all you really need.

I'm sure you've seen the amazing promotional stuff that NBC does, with their very intense, high-quality and effects intensive ads that they do. Needless to say, his skill alone sold me.

And beyond that, it's just up to the skill, patience and creativity you develop.

Oh yeah, and the stuff NBC uses is:

http://www.discreet.com/products/
(Flame was the one he was using)

Matt,
I've not used Combustion but I do own After Effects Production Bundle and Commotion Pro. If I was in a boat that could only fit one, I'd also select After Effects. Broad 3d party support, broader versatility, a defacto standard throughout the film & video industry. You should note, however, that these two products do not have identical design objectives. Commotion's roots are deeply embedded in rotoscoping and rotosplining, whereas AE was always designed as a more general Swiss Army Knife of post-production tools.

So before making a decision, consider your needs. If you expect to principally need a heavy-duty roto tool select Commotion. If you're just playing around and need a generalist get AE.

After Effects is the one, especially if Apple fixes the plugin situation with FCP. AE plugins used to work in FCP until version 3. One of the hoped for improvements to FCP 4 is the use of AE plugins again.

Jeff

Thanks for all the info, guys! I really apprecaite it!
Matt

Combustion seems to have better effects than AE to me. I really love the particle system, which may be the reason I like it so much better than AE. Chroma Keying is great in Combustion too. The interface...superb.

To check out boris RED as well.

They are all good. Combustion takes a little while to figure out but can do some awesome things.

PS gets lots and lots of RAM

;)

Commotion is probably the best "special effects" dv package going- the movie "Gladiator" used Commotion quite a bit and compiled the "arena" scenes with Commotion........the motion tracking is awesome.......monster movies, etc.......

my vote goes to Commotion.