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Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware by Autodesk and published by Focal Press is one of the few training manuals available for Autodesk Combustion.
Coming in at just under 500 pages, Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware walks the reader through the entire interface. By the time one has completed the many tutorials, they should be able to use Combustion 4 like a pro. Much like course books developed for rival applications, this book is broken into sections aimed at introducing the application, creating with the Paint Tool, animating layers, understanding the transfer modes, and using channels, mattes, and masks.
If you have never used Combustion 4 before, then pay special attention to the first part of the book. From walking the reader through the interface, to creating a simple composite, editing clips, and using the new Timewarp feature, this is one of the most complete introductions of any software I have seen. If you have been using Combustion for a while, much of this information will be of little value, but there are valuable tips and tricks that are worth skimming the chapter to glean. Since Timewarp is a brand new feature in Combustion 4, users of all experience ranges will want to spend time reading this section.
While Paint may not seem like a huge feature, in Combustion 4 it not only includes simple paint tools like boxes and circles, but also includes text creation, wire removal, gradient creation, and selections. Productions are increasingly requiring a large amount post and graphic work. Most of this work is touching up areas of the screen, and adding text. Most of the chapters in the second section of the book are only a few pages in length, and readers will be able to make it through this section quickly.
I was a little surprised that the reader has to make it through the first 200 pages of the book before making it to the section on transforming and controlling a layer. Anything that needs to move in a composition will need to be keyframed, and this is the section of the book that focuses on that.
After the reader has the basic understanding of keyframing, Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware walks you through Transfer Modes and displacement mapping. Next to learning how to keyframe, understanding the way layers can blend together can make your compositions go from ho-hum to oh-wow!
The trio of keyframing, transfer modes, and masks/mattes are the core of any compositing and animation application. Alpha channels, mask creation and manipulation, and channel effects are adequately covered in this section of the book.
Following what I would term the core functions of Combustion 4, the book explores many of the higher features like working with 3D compositions, motion tracking and stabilization, and the highly popular keying and color correcting effects. Again, since this book is a broad overview of the many feature of Combustion, advanced users may not want to spend a great deal of time in many of these sections. However, the Diamond Keyer is another of the new features in this release users of all experience ranges will want to read and refer to often.
The final section of the book contains tutorials and explanations covering several of the new features. The G-Buffer Builder is one of the more interesting features to be found in Combustion 4 and open the door to creating dramatic depth effects without have to slice layers or create complex 3D environments. Even though the included particle generator has not been updated past the 2.0 version, it still has a lot of value to those create particle effects. Two chapters describe the implementation and use of this feature.
The exercises in Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware are short and simple, and really touch on the basics of how the highlighted feature works. As an intermediate user of Combustion, some of the examples seem very simple. I had to keep reminding myself as I worked through the book that is was a fundamentals book, and not an intermediate/advanced tome. That being said, I hope Autodesk is feverishly working on an advanced courseware book that really demonstrates how to push Combustion 4 to its limits.
My biggest complaint with this and other software coursework books published by other companies is the lack of color images. When working with applications like Combustion 4, having colorful visuals can certainly help in the understanding of the subject matter.
That one annoyance out of the way, I found the flow and structure of the book to be well executed. Anyone who is picking up Autodesk?s Combustion for the first time will find the learning curve greatly reduced by reading Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware. This book earns a Strong Buy Recommendation.
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