Check out These Great Articles!
Sean Cusson ~ Secrets of High-impact Graphics
Ayman Abdel-Basset ~ Writing a Logo with Light
Dave Anselmi ~ Ergonomics for COWs
John David Hutton ~ Evoluent Vertical Mouse
Michael Hurwicz ~ Combustion 4 Training Course
Alan Edward Bell ~ Sapphire Plug-ins Provide Big Help on ''Little Manhattan''
Bimo Adi Prakoso ~ Creating the Old Movie look with Combustion - Dirt and Scratches
Todd Groves ~ The Blonde with One Green Screen
Karl Holt ~ SynthEyes 3-D Camera Tracker
Ayman Abdel-Basset ~ Using the Diamond Keyer of Combustion 4 to change a selected color
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Autodesk Combustion
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Writing a Logo with Light
In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW leader Ayman Abdel-Basset demonstrates a quick, easy way to use the eraser of the paint operator and the particle system of Autodesk Combustion to create a nice writing logo effect -- complete with shining rays. This tutorial is for advanced users of Combustion, but also has some useful tips for new users.
Tutorial, Video Tutorial |
Autodesk Combustion
Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion: Replacing A Color using the Color Suppression Operator
Beginners in Combustion often ask the question: My actor's shirt is green. How do I change it to blue? In this tutorial, Ayman Abdel-Basset demonstrates how to change one color in an image to another color. And he does it in Combustion without extra plug-ins.
Tutorial |
Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion: Creating Rays of Sunshine without Plug-ins
In this tutorial, Ayman Abdel-Basset demonstrates how to create the effect of rays without 3rd party plug-ins by using the keying operator and dolly blur operator - creating the illusion of light using simply basic blurs in Combustion.
Tutorial |
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Art of the Edit
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Ergonomics for COWs
The question was asked in the Avid Editing COW: 'After eight years of working on a computer, my wrist hurts within an hour. Anyone else getting carpel tunnel? What can I do to prevent major damage?' Dave Anselmi, a T'ai Ch'i Instructor for over 10 years and whose friend is an Ergonomics Specialist, was quick to the rescue with this great advice.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Sapphire Plug-ins Provide Big Help on ''Little Manhattan''
Film editor and FX artist, Alan Edward Bell shares some Hollywood secrets in this discussion of his recent job for 20th Century Fox and New Regency Pictures, "Little Manhattan." One tool he came back to again and again was GenArts' Sapphire Plug-ins -- both during the editing stage to create effects within Final Cut Pro, and during the finishing stage to finalize the effects at film resolution within Autodesk combustion.
Interview |
Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion 3
Alan Edward Bell takes a thorough look at Discreet Combustion 3 and concludes with, "...Many feature film and television effects houses use Combustion on a daily basis for doing everything from matte generation, color correction to full blown compositing, I cannot recommend this software enough, and this review only scratches the surface of what is possible."
Review |
Autodesk Combustion
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How to Use Bit Depth Converters and View LUT
In this tutorial, Alan Edward Bell demonstrates how to work with Cineon files and combustion. Generally speaking the rule of thumb is, that you should do all your color correction in Log space and the majority of your image transformations in linear space.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion: Create a Traced Watermark Image
In this tutorial, Rikard Bosnjakovic will demonstrate converting an existing logo to a paint-object and use it as a watermark for pictures. The intent of the tutorial is to overcome some nasty and unwanted problems with traced objects in the paint operator. This tutorial is for beginners.
Tutorial |
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Adobe After Effects
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Secrets of High-impact Graphics
Creative COW Contributing Editor and graphics expert Sean Cusson shares the secrets to success that hes learned the hard way. They include the power of music for graphic design, compositing techniques, logo animation and invaluable workflow tips that will save you hours. Sean also shows you how to keep your graphics clients coming back for more.
Feature |
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Autodesk Combustion
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The Importance of Digital Color Correction
Paulo de Andrade is an accomplished video effects artist whose work includes 19 years in broadcast television where he has worked on hundreds of major international series and films. In this article, Paulo looks at the importance of digital color correction and explores some of the ways that he uses to create visual magic in his own work. As the founder of MacProNet.com, a site dedicated to Macintosh media professionals, Paulo focuses on tools like Final Cut Pro and Discreet Combustion in this article.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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The Blonde with One Green Screen
The following technique from CreativeCOW member Todd Groves can be applied to situations where the actor or object that is placed before a greenscreen/bluescreen has some element about them that cannot be separated by the standard approach to keying. The situation that inspired this solution involved a blonde haired actress in front of a greenscreen.''
Tutorial |
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Adobe After Effects
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SynthEyes 3-D Camera Tracker
If your are unfamiliar with 3D camera tracking software, SynthEyes 3-D Camera Tracker is a tool which will analyze moving 2D video footage by tracking points of reference frame by frame. From this, it can reproduce an accurate 3D camera which matches the properties and movement of the real-world camera you used to shoot the sequence. In this review/tutorial, Karl Holt gives us an indepth look along with a lot of tips for using the software.
Review, Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion 4 Training Course
Michael Hurwicz looks at Kenneth LaRue's combustion 4 training DVDs and concludes that this set is great for novices and intermediates alike, but if you're already an expert, you may only need the 'What's New in Combustion 4' set that's available.
Review |
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Windows Hardware & Software
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Evoluent Vertical Mouse
It starts as a slight twinge in the shoulder, or a prickle in the wrist, a dime-sized knot in the forearm or a tingling somewhere up and down the arm. Whatever the symptoms, the cause is usually the same - RSI or repetitive strain injury or its widely publicized brother, carpal tunnel syndrome. In this article, John David Hutton takes a look at the new Evoluent Vertical Mouse. It could be the answer to protecting yourself from carpal tunnel and other strains.
Review |
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Apple Shake
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How to become a Feature Film Compositor by John Lafauce Jr.
Have you ever wanted to contribute to building a twenty thousand man army in "Troy", make a mouse fly a plane in "Stuart Little 2", or launch a doomed luxury liner in "Titanic?" You can achieve visual feats you never dreamed possible and accomplish them all through the magic of compositing. Read this article written by John Lafauce Jr., and see... How to become a feature film compositor. A note just to clarify: this article is about high-end 2d/3d compositing for long form media such as films, where the goal is to make the work seamless, integrated and "invisible". Not to be confused with compositing for motion graphics, where the objective is to make the object or design stand out and be "visible" to the viewer.
Tutorial, Feature |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Combustion 4, a first look by Ken LaRue
Creative Cow's Ken LaRue explores the just announced Discreet combustion 4. Packed with many new features that Ken enthusiastically describes as ''Hot!'' and which include quite a number that many users have had on their own personal wish lists, C4 is drawing a lot of attention and discussion here in the Creative Cow forums. In this article, Ken helps us explore many of the reasons why...
Review |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Using Selections, Particles & Turbulence in Combustion
In this tutorial, Michael Mey demonstrates using some simple operators in Combustion to make a castle look like it's burning. The intent of this article is to show how selections and particles can be combined to make some elements of the picture to be in front of the particles effects and others to be behind.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
Autodesk Combustion
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3D Transitions in discreet combustion
In this tutorial, Ben Munkres demonstrates building a transition in order to instruct in the use of the 3d workspace and how to put into use in a production piece.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
Autodesk Combustion
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Creating the Old Movie look with Combustion
Contributing Editor, Bimo Adi Prakoso demonstrates some techniques for Creating the Old Movie Looks with Combustion in this tutorial. He adivises readers that, ''Many plugins for creating an old movie look are available at various costs, but the challenge is creating one without any plugin at all. Actually, it's a simple, straight forward process''.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Creating a Promo Transition with Combustion
As the lines between television and the internet continue to blur, it seems like every TV channel wants you to look at their website. Whether you're CNN or community television, you'll have to rise above the straight cut or dissolve to get the viewer's attention.In this tutorial, Lee 'Rod' Roderick will show you how to use Discreet combustion to create a promo transition that combines digital video and motion graphics. Once you set it up, you can substitute your own clips and text.
Tutorial |
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Autodesk Combustion
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Creating Jittery Text
Adam Tracksler was reading through the tutorials at CreativeCow and stumbled across an After Effects tutorial on creating Jittery Text. He thought, hey, you can do that in Combustion, and here's how.
Tutorial |
Autodesk 3ds Max
Autodesk Combustion
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Morphing Smoke into Text
When I was working on a title sequence for a short film, I needed some help creating a particular effect; smoke morphing into text. Not knowing where to turn, I wrote a post in the Combustion Forum. Lucky for me some people were more than happy to help out. Lee "Rod" Roderick, Discreet Training Specialist, helped me out. This tutorial was created from his original file. In this tutorial, we will use Combustion's Particle effects and text operators to create a cool effect suitable for your home or office.
Tutorial |
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