Interesting. I would disagree with many of Hellomojo's requests (no offense intended, just MHO). I certainly don't want icons, as they seem to clutter up the interface from my point of view. I also like the button size, since they are easy to hit but not so large as to be eye sores. I'm also not interested in unusual primitives. I have had no problems modeling whatever I want in XSI (not including 1.0). What I really want is:
1) Bug fixes and optimization.
2) Bug fixes and optimization. Speed and stability are vital to production.
3) I do want to see fur, even though the applications are somewhat limited. If there were branching controls to add some vegetation simulation this would be nice, although not imperative.
4) Really polish and round out the dynamics, particle and liquid dynamics areas. Hmm, I guess what I'm saying is keep working on the Simulate module.
5) Advanced documentation. Specifically, provide more scripting information so that motivated non-programmers can get jump-started. In addition, although the documentation on the render tree is extensive, a commercial book on the subject is probably called for, to bring small firms up to speed and ease the transition from other packages (hire Ed Harris to write it). And make sure Chris Maraffi updates his character animation book to keep it current.
6) Continue an aggressive student discount and marketing stratagy. This won't benefit me directly, but a larger community of users makes for more public resources (e.g. shaders, tutorials, scripts), a stronger work base to hire from, and more human ingenuity tinkering under XSI's hood.
And finally:
7) Bug fixes and optimization.
I bet that the guys at Avid have some awesome gee-wiz features up their sleeves, and I look forward to them. But XSI also needs to be made rock solid for production in different environments (I'm partial to educational content production myself...) But they seem to be pretty smart fellows, so I think the future looks rosy.
Scott
