xsi 2.02

[wurp]

I've seen that the newest release of xsi is 2.02, whats new in this release?

[nohairmonk]

Probably bug fixes, mostly on the hair system.

[daanbanaan]

any idea when we will have preview swatches in the render tree??...i mean...come on!!!

[ben-taylor--3]

Why do you need preview swatches in the RenderTree when you have Mental Ray giving you everything you need with a render region?

I come from a Max/Maya background and since moving over to XSI I have no use for the swatches. I mean you can mute attributes so to can see just the selected item.

What's so important about swatches?

I'm not trying to bust your chops or anything....I'm just wondering why everyone wants it? (Usually it's us folks who come from Maya/Max)

???

[atyss]

You can preview almost any part of the Render Tree in the render region by hitting P and clicking on the node you want. Click P again to return to normal preview.

Salutations - Cheers
Bernard Lebel

[daanbanaan]

i would like to be able to see a preview of my setting without having to render in the scene......ESPECIALLY when using mental ray...

and correct me if i am wrong....but didn't Soft have little preview spheres????

[ben-taylor--3]

Tell ya what.......if the spheres are not in the next release of xsi email me "thekeyframer@hotmail.com" and I'll see if I can write a little ui that will give you the spheres on a per object/shader level.

Basically all i need to do is create a low-res sphere and have it call mental ray into this ui. I tried this before when I first got into XSI and it was about 65% complete but then I got used to the render region. No need to write code if something else works for me.

FYI. I used the Mtor plugin for Maya and Slim (shader UI) gives you a shader ball that will only update when you click it...it calls renderman to render the swatch. I can do something like this in XSI.

But my offer still stands if it's not available in the next release.

[daanbanaan]

dude....you would be the MAN!....plus...your way would be more accurate as well.

[ben-taylor--3]

be the man? lol nahh just trying to help:)

But seriously though...

The way I would do it is really no difference than what XSI does... I still would be appling the shader/texture onto geometry, I still would use Mental Ray to render the shader ball. The only difference is it's on a sphere in a little ui as opposed to the viewport.

But whatever makes it easier is the way to go.

Just let me know after next release.
Actually If I need to write it I'll just post it here and to XSI net.

Later,

Rick

[devdoka]

@@i would like to be able to see a preview of my setting without having to render in the scene......ESPECIALLY when using mental ray...

The whole purpose of shaderballs in SI3D was to see an "approximation" of your shader and how it would look relative to the rest of the scene. But the problem with shaderballs is that they did not properly take lighting and other scene wide effects into account (such as volume or output shaders). When you applied a texture or tweaked some parameters that relied on UV coords or the like, maybe your shaderball preview would look fine, but as soon as you did a render or preview, the result would be completely different.

With XSI, everything is in context, so therefore, you don't need shaderballs anymore because you're looking at the real thing. If you need to isolate a preview to a specific object to reduce rendertime, then select the object(s) and set the region to "Render selection only". This will render much faster and give you precise feedback. If you have other effects you don't want to see, then deactivate them in your render options, or, do what is becoming the new standard in rendering workflow - use passes.

@@and correct me if i am wrong....but didn't Soft have little preview spheres????

Shaderballs were in SI3D because mental ray supported them. But with mental ray v2.1 and later, mental ray no longer supports shaderballs which is probably a big reason why they're not in XSI. In order to get shaderballs in XSI, Softimage would have to write their own custom code to do it.

Hope this sheds light on the situation.

Matt

---

Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com

[daanbanaan]

i guess i see everyones point on this...makes sence....

but sometimes i just want to tweek...say the amount of a noise...without having to render in the context of the scene.....

but you guys are right...when machines get fast enough...especially when the real time shaders become standard....shader swatches will be a thing of the past.