Moving to Combustion from After Effects, Part 3:
Page 3 of 3
Where is it?
While AE's toolbar is right there in the open (fig. 14, left), you might have to hunt a little to find Combustion's. It's docked with the Workspace panel (fig. 14, right), and is probably hidden behind it even as we speak.
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| Figure 14 |
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Main differences
I really don't have anything to report here. I use the Combustion toolbar about as much as I used the After Effects one, which is to say rarely if ever. My workflow has evolved to where I find myself doing most of the things the toolbar does through some other control, so your mileage may vary here.
Project Window
After Effects' Project Window is called the Workspace in Combustion. In either program, it's where you manage your footage, comps, and other assets, but in Combustion's case, it is simultaneously more and less than what After Effects offers. Ooh! Intrigue! All will be revealed in the "main differences" portion of this section!
Where is it?
The C2 Workspace is located on the bottom left of the interface, docked with the toolbar (fig. 15). If you happened to click on the toolbar tab earlier, you'll have to click on the workspace tab to activate it.
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| Figure 15 |
Main differences
In After Effects, you've probably noticed that you spend a lot of time in the Timeline, even if you're not doing any animating. as the Timeline is one of the main ways to organize your comp's layers, tweak properties, and so on. The Project window is pretty much strictly for asset management. In Combustion, the Workspace more or less combines the two. In the top half of the Workspace is a series of hierarchies describing the various compositions and other junk that your project contains. The bottom half is the footage library, the purpose of which I hope is fairly self evident. And while the Workspace combines aspects of the After Effects Timeline and Project windows, the actual "meat" of how you change properties and manage footage lies in the various Operator Control tabs, which we'll get to next time.
The other difference to mention here is that Combustion's Workspace panel doesn't support dragging and dropping files directly to it from the Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, which gives AE the edge there. I think that this is the ninth or tenth time I've mentioned this deficiency during the run of this series. Discreet, are you listening?
Break time
Whew! That was quite a whirlwind trip, wasn't it? And we're only about a third of the way through the interface, for Pete's sake! Next time we're going to continue on with much more of our tour, including the magical world of the Operator Controls panel, where the stakes can really change! Until next time, kids.
When not fleeing the paparazzi or spending his vast fortune associated with the fame and notoriety of being a DMN contributor, Kevin Schmitt can be found with his eyeballs glued to his computer screen, attempting to use some of the hardware and software he rants so incoherently about. An award-winning animator, artist and multimedia producer, he is currently a freelance designer located in the enormously bustling megalopolis of Charlottesville, VA. Whether you're looking to "give him the business" of either the figurative or literal type, feel free to drop him a line. He's ready to believe you!
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