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XSI does not have a paint-effects-like tool, but it has and makes frequent use of painting surfaces interactively, using painting to select and deform geometry, and allows custom maps to be painted on any surface and used to code for any purpose. The thing about XSI painting is that it is much quicker and simpler to use than in maya, and can be used more extensively. But that's where the functionality ends, you can't use it like you do paint effects.
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I should point out that it is vertex painting, with all the limitations, so don't assume it's a full-fledge 3D paint program. It's meant to paint weight maps and the likes, not textures.
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XSI is far more advanced than 3d Extreme, although extreme has the benefit of having had years of polishing.
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Right. Although I prefer XSI much more than SI3D, I must admit that working with SI3D was a real pleasure. Why? Because SI3D is solid a rock and of an awesome simplicity. I never had stability problems, messed up spdls, missing shaders, and the likes. No matter what I rendered, well, it rendered, plain and simple. With XSI there is still a lot of fiddling with the parameters to get the rendering right, and even then, so many things can really slow down or even crash your rendering. Plus, SI3D has many very useful functions, like Cleanup, Order, Bumpmap+, and the likes.
Still, I appreciate the strenghts of XSI and would prefer to see new features in it than having to go back to SI3D.
Cheers
Bernard