XSI Newbie question (2)

[matt-sony]

Hi everyone!

I'm a Maya user, who is trying out the demo version of XSI and I have one question.

In Maya, I use the multilister a lot, which gives me a preview of my scenes materials on basic spheres. This allows me to pick a sphere and then be able to select what objects use this material and also lets me modify the parameters for that material.

What I want to know, is if there is something like this in XSI. The only thing I seem to be able to do, is select an object and then choose get shader, which brings up a property editor, but with no preview. Is this all there is? Do I have to rely on the quick render region to preview stuff?

I've gone through all of the tutorials on the cd, but I can't remember anything like this being covered...

Any help would be cool!

Cheers,

Matt.

[ozz-2005]

hey

yes for now the render region is really the only way. you could always make a physical sphere though that maybe is situated on its own layer...and then apply the current material that your working on to it. so this way you could easily make fast shaders ..test em out ..hide the sphere and unhide the other layers to apply your shader.

for now thats all i could think of. its not as nice as a sphere preview in the material editor though..

[richard-sher]

I know that many people switching to XSI are used to shader balls. While there are no shader balls in XSI there are a couple of things you can do that almost take the place of shaderballs.

1. Set your render region to render selected objects only. (Either in the render options or by right clicking on the render region)

2. Sometimes you don't want to render the entire tree, just part of it. So.... In the render tree, select the node that you want to preview and hit the P key. This will temporarily connect just that node to the object and as a result only that node will render. Pressing the P key again will set it back to normal. (don't forget to do this before you save your scene or your entire tree might not save correctly)

With a combination of "Preview nodes" and "Render selection only" you can achieve a

[matt-sony]

Thanks guys!