So Satisfied Over the Years

[ss-kalm]

Here's my first Xara (was 1.1 but patched to 1.2). Still exists on my computer even though I normally use Xtreme 4.

[Egg Bramhill]

Here's one of my very early drawings created in Artworks (colours are far to bright!). I have used CC/Xara programs daily over many years and they never fail to deliver.

[BONES]

What has combustion to do with Xtreme??!! And how can combustion replace Xtreme in certain situations? Can you elaborate a little more please?

Its simple, really. Most of what I used to do in Photoshop/Photopaint I now do in Xara. For the occasional other stuff, like scaling bitmaps or trimming bitmaps that I exported from Xara, I use Combustion. I often describe it to students as "Photoshop for moving pictures", so it seems appropriate. If you use some Photoshop filters in Xara, they export with an edge [Alienskin Television, for example], so I need something else to fix them up. I've not put Xara to the test but I like having filtering options when I scale bitmaps, so Combustion wins on that score.

I also do things that require any kind of animation in Combustion, i.e. Flash, as Xara's animation is basically pathetic. Sometimes I'll design an animation in Xara, export it as vectors, load it up in Paint [Combustion's vector-paint tool] and do the animation there but more often than not I'll do it all in Combustion.

If Xara had timeline-based animation it could be an absolute killer in the broadcast graphics market.

[sgiff]

I use After Effects as well as Xara but I would never think to compare the two since one is a drawing app and the other is for compositing and vfx. I never liked the workflow in Combustion but maybe I should check it out again if it works better with Xara.

[BONES]

That's because After Effects is not Combustion. Combustion used to be two separate applications, one of which was a vector drawing application with full timeline-based animation, so it is much better than After Effects in that area. Its workflow is also infinitely superior to After Effects, you just have to forget about After Effects and use it the way it was designed to work. i.e. Don't fixate on the timeline, it is not where you do things in Combustion.
I bet you also use Photoshop, right? Why? What can it do that After Effects can't? The really great thign about Combustion or After Effects is that it is a non-destructive workflow - you can always go back and reduce a blur amount, for instance, years after you first did the work. Even things like the Healing Brush or whatever they call it offer nothign that you cannot do with noise removal plugins.

[Egg Bramhill]

Please stay on topic. If you wish to discuss Combustion/After Effects please do so in the Off Topic forum and not by hijacking another members thread.