I am a maya and max user but have heard raves about softimage. I went to the site and heard XSI 2.0 and 3d 4.0 are coming out soon, However what is the big difference betweent these two programs I want to know the ups and downs of both and what they are respectively used for, thanks in advance.
Well, that is a rather lengthy question to answer. But here it is in the short form.
XSI 2.0 is to Soft 3D 4.0 as...
Maya is to Power Animator
or
3ds Max is to 3D Studio DOS.
XSI is essentially the next generation of Softimage 3D.
XSI is a huge leap in animation, character rigging, scripting, and poly modeling. The RenderTree alone is staggering. Mental Ray is integrated, fast and beautiful.
One of the tools guys at my company is absolutely in love with XSI scripting. He said that it is leaps over MAXscript. He has his own development environment set up so he can debug XSI scripts as he goes.
I could go on and on.
There are others here more qualified to answer.
XSI v1 did have its holes, like no poly tools and such. But they are quickly adding in and enhancing XSI. They are very quickly filling in the gaps between XSI and Soft 3D.
At some point they will not be developing Soft 3D any more. It will all be XSI.
Down load the XSI v2 PDF spec sheet and take a look at whats in store for 2.0.
I have only scratched the surface.
Enjoy.
Vmpre