Quote Originally Posted by markbutts
I've been looking closely at these two products.
Both seem to have good and bad points.
I'm interested in opinions regarding these two products specifically as it relates to media server content creation.

Mark Butts
http://www.markbutts.com
Combustion3 is a very useful piece of software regarding to contents for Catalyst. The built in particle system is the same as Particle Illusion (www.wondertouch.com). I have been used Combustion about 2 years now and I feel that is really a workhorse, specially together with AE.

C3 is fast both on pc or mac´s (G5), great texttool,great to make contents in huge formats (as 5700x600 that we produce here in Istanbul right now for ESC2004), it not complain about anything almost.You can use AE plugs (most of them) direct into C3.

To have good control of content creation, choose AE+C3 and so many good plug´s as you can afford (tip: www.trapcode.com , it is all a must have, and proud to say it is pure Swedish).

Another simple but very useful piece of software is ProAnimator from Zaxwerks. People always need their logotyp flying around or 3d text and as long that they have it in vector files (ai,eps) your are ready for almost any challange in seconds. www.zaxwerks.com