well ed i think your probably all right i'm still in computer graphic science school so my level is indeed very low compare to lot of guys that post on highend , and xsi is really scary ,lot lot of buttons !!! but in my opinion xsi is indeed the futur , and the futur of cg is the authomatisation of the process , for exemple the new character setup modul in xsi , is very interesting , it's like the transition beetween the manual camera like the leica m6 , and the atomatic camera like the eos 1, you win time but in the processus of creation you have a better control with 3D!!! i don't know if the pluggins writting is easy on xsi , but when i need somoething on softimage i can write it in a esy way , it's like the mel , so the big difference is here for the same thing you will be able to do it really faster on xsi , but with less control ... and on the top of that the 3D interface is just a masterpiece for me , but it's of course a passionate preference , i'm not objective so , in fact you will go faster with XSi !!! does anybody know if ILM have decided to jump on XSI ??? if ILM and square jump to XSI it's for me a good proud of XSI valor !!! i know that kojima and the konami team , choose xsi for their MGS2 and the result is wonderfull ...