I agree with apit on Cleaner. 3ds max, while a great program, will take quite some time to learn. The others (infereno, flame, etc.) I think would be overkill but, if you have a good computer and lots of time to spend studying, go for it. Also, don't foget about Discreet's combustion. That & Cleaner are something you could use with Vegas a lot.

Mike

Combustion. I use it for complex green screening and compositing. Not that vegas 5 cant do it, but combustion can do it better. Out of all of the products from discreet, i think combustion is a great adition to vegas. 3dsmax is great, but unless you need to be doing 3d animation work, get somthing else. if it was me, and i could get two of there products, i would go with Flame for compositing, and lustre for color corection

Thank you. Any other folks who have actually used their products and have a preference (I've never seen so many products described the same way (i.e. their website)?

Their product manager's are not doing a good job of segmenting their products and it is not very obvious what each does (they ought to have a grid).

More comments?

Combustion and 3D Studio Max. But there are deep and take time to learn. They are suited for high end production of video and film and anything below.

Yugioh

How does combustion compare to Fire and Heat?

Again, their website is useless...no comparison chart.

Chanimal, the only places I've seen flame & smoke used are very high-end post houses. My guess is that, when you're at that level of sophistication/expertise, you don't need comparisons. You already know what the right tool for the job is.

Mike

Cleaner is useful mainly if you have a lot of files to convert many different ways - a real time saver
From what you say it sounds like Combustion might be useful
I didn't find it easy to learn - but I was also new to the video/compositing world with only a bit of Vegas under my belt - and I am by no means an expert but one thing I can say is that once I got into the interface I found it intelligently laid out, very responsive and rock solid.
Also recommended would be to download the tutorial files from Discreet - the help files with the app - though a good reference - don't offer much in the way of a walkthrough for various things -
I also found a book used on-line that was most helpful - "Discreet Combustion 3" - Gary Davis Focal Press - he provides good tutorials that you have to get from a site listed in the intro somewhere
Happy Combusting

fultro

I have used most of there products. When you work on 50 million dollar projects, you use fire smoke etc. whole different league. Combustion takes parts of the Pro products, and puts it into a very capable product. Unless your ready to gice up Vegas as your NLE and enter a whole new realm, with a deep learning cureve, THen you dont even need to look at Fire and smoke. If you take the basic parts of inferno flame and flint, you end up with combustion. Lustre is a Excelent "color grading" program, but the big reason to use it is if you are color grading 2k/4k media (35mm film). Combustion has some excelent color grading tools with it. it also has backburner which has network farm capabilities and scheduling. 3dsmax is a great product, (i use Maya). IF you have no need to do to 3D animation and such, then stay away from it. It has a very deep learning curve, especialy for those not familur with 3D, and if your not using it often, it will be more a frutration then a commdity. anyway thats my 5 cents.