humphhh...

Xsi
1

ok, how lomg did it take you people to become comfortable within XSI? I'm a newbie to XSI, but not to 3D, I use Maya where I work, and due to the difficulty of using 1 package during the day and a seperate one at night (xsi), my mind is in bits chopping and changing.

Ok, where I am right now is, I have made my way through the Fundamentals Manuals, I then made my way through the Modelling And Deformations Manual, great, great stuff. I'm currently working my way through the Shaders/Light and Camera Manual, whllst occasionally trying out a tutorial at a time from the tutorials provided.

Basically, right now, I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere, if anything I feel it's getting more difficult right now, the poly modelling just doesn't feel intuitive at all, why can't I extrude edges? instead of CTRL+D which subdivides an edge. Why is there no options to merge vertices?

More Questions :-

  1. Why when adding edges can't I snap it to the centre of a poly line junction?
  2. Why when I parent a child to an object, nothing happens when I translate the parent, i.e. two cubes, drag and drop cube2 on top of cube1 in explorer, it shows cube2 as child of cube1 (i.e you have to open child1 to see child2), now select child1 (parent) and move it around screen, cub2 doesn't budge at all)?
  3. Why do I have to move a subdivided object outside of it's low-poly cage to view it, surely I should be able to toggle the cage to wireframe?

Any help and general advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm giving this my all to learn and become good at XSI, I think because I'm a newbie, I'm being ignored (as in I should know this stuff so stop asking and go away), at least that's how I feel here on these boards when questions I ask don't get replies. I'm not demanding answers here either, just some good solid advice (and no, I don't want to stick with Maya! )

Anyways, sorry for the rants.

Like I said, I'l appreciate any help you guys can give me, along with any advice to go along with it.

Thanks.

2

you gotta select the parent in branch mode with the middle mouse button to move the hierarchy.

to look at the subdiv surface, make the viewport hide polygons, or select the polycage and hide it

I don't have poly modeling in xsi fresh in my head to say anything about the edges etc:(

I use maya at work too

3

hi
i send u here an older post i've sended about parent/child transformations..
"there r 2 ways to make it:
1)save a SRT key for the child(s) object,then u select the parent and animate,or
2)select your parent object in branch mode (middle mouse click, this way u select a branch within the hierarchy tree,or even the whole hierarchy if u click on the root of the hierarchy. )or select any object within the hierarchy in tree mode(right mouse click,this way u select the root of the hierarchy and it's childs).Then u can animate and the childs will transform with the parent..When u save keys with the second way note that these keys r saved for the parent object only. To see and edit the fcurves on the animation editor u must select the animated object.The way u select objects in XSI is important also when u want to store actions for use in the animation mixer.(for example when u store actions in branch mode then u store the animation data for the child(s) too if there r any).U can use the middle/right button in the explorer view also.
ps:U can combine both ways when u want the child to follow the parent's transformations but be able(the child) to have it's own animation."
Before XSI i was using 3DMax and in some parts i was confused with XSI but with some experiment i found the solutions in most of my problems..
I don't know why u feel that people from this forum ignore your questions..don't forget that there r not all experts here..maybe some don't know the answer..for a particular question..
Anyway have fun and don't forget to experiment yourself..use your knowledge on MAYA as your background for exploring XSI..and soon u'll feel comfortable with it.

4

1) You can extrude an edge rather than duplicating it by selecting an edge and:
a) pressing Ctrl Shift +D.
or
right clicking for the pop up window and choosing "extrude on axis".

2) Merging verticies in 1.5 can be done by collapsing and edge between the two vertices. 2.0 is much better at this and has new commands for welding both points and edges.

3) to draw new edges and have it snap to other edge midpoints (I think this is what you are asking), go to your snap options and turn on mid-points and in the options tab turn off "Ignore selected objects". Then you can Ctrl snap (or just turn snapping on) when drawing edges and they will hit those mid-points.

4) The parent moving without translating chlidren was done as a manipulation mode to help character setup... like noted above you can just branch select, but it's clear people want the option to turn this on or off. In XSI 2.0 there is a mode called "Auto Child Compensate" which switchs this behavior. By default it will be the way it sounds like you want it.

5) As for the outer cage it totally depends what kind of subdivision surface you are using. If it's a generator (which creates new objects) then you can hide it or turn to wireframe in the Display options. If its on the Geometry Approximation tab then you can turn off "PolyMesh Hulls" in your display options.

In XSI 2.0 there are alot of new options for viewing subdivsions, you can make subdivisions disply just like nurbs and have more control over the display of unselect subdivision surfaces.

5

Thanks all, I can't say how much I appreciate all your help here!

Thanks.