Xsi Maya Compared

[francoisfp]

I have been a Maya user for the past 6 years. I am seriously considering the switch to XSI. I am an Independent generalist (as opposed to a specialist) so I am interested in all aspects of the XSI experience. I'm hoping to get some feedback from users familiar with both packages as to general strengths and weakness, etc. In short, would this be a wise move?

[cgboris]

I think there are very few persons entitled to give you a knowledgeable opinion about this. Personally I know only one. It seems general consensus that XSI is not running on Linux as well as Maya does and it doesn't run on Mac at all. If your OS is Window though XSI 5.0 has definitively a feeling of a newer product compared to Maya and it's definitively a viable or better option. Maya has tons of books, plugins and users that XSI doesn't have, but again, if your purpose is to work with the default package on your Window machine, I'll say XSI can be a winning choice on the long run.

Cheers.

Boris

[schoenefeldt-andreas]

QUOTE(syzygy @ 03/09/06, 01:56 PM) [snapback]230556[/snapback]
I have been a Maya user for the past 6 years. I am seriously considering the switch to XSI. I am an Independent generalist (as opposed to a specialist) so I am interested in all aspects of the XSI experience. I'm hoping to get some feedback from users familiar with both packages as to general strengths and weakness, etc. In short, would this be a wise move?

There are a lot of studios using XSI as part of their pipeline but not as a dedicated suite. For instance, modeling, texturing, UV mapping are done on foundation workstations then brought into Maya for lighting, animation, dynamics or Houdini for special dynamics then finally to renderman for lighting and shader output renders.

XSI is by far a much better modeler and uv mapper then Maya 8 though Maya 8 has better proprietary studio independant or standard plugin connection interface to renderman.

XSI is much cheaper for a foundation or modeling seat.

I've found that many of the jobs that I've interviewed for are using XSI in their pipe so I would defenitaly learn it, at least how to model and texture.

Christian Choi