hey, was wondering what the differences were between XSI and Softimage3D ? is XSI the "replacement" for 3d but they're jsut waiting till XSI is polished off then they drop 3D? or do they perform different things? hope you guys canclear this up for me
In my opinion XSI is smooth replacement of 3D. The 'smooth' means it changes gradually until XSI become a big and comprehensive as mature application. I remember version 1.0 was packed together with Soft|3d 3.9. Now with version 1.5 there many Soft|3d's great features hasn't been plugged yet. I believe all the power of Soft|3d would be in XSI 2.0 and the next. Softimage still renews 3d version since many users still use it extensively.
XSI itself has many new great things: animation mixer, integration with mental ray, and many more. Sometimes i've got unfamiliar with texture/shader workflow, but the render tree is powerful and intuitive.
I'm sure the guys in this forum could explain it much better. (Urp and Speye?). Hi urp, share what you saw at Siggraph, he..he..
yep that's what i was trying to say, once XSI becomes the full 9 yards or whatever, bye bye 3d. thanks
AVID still doesn't get it if they want to compete against Maya. They need to make XSI a FORCE with next generation tools to eliminate Soft 3D out of the picture. Learning 2 packages for the novice takes twice as long to train unless you're familar with old Soft. I've noticed this among my students at the college I'm teaching between Maya and Softimage. After demoing XSI the new features makes me doubt Maya has a future after version 5. But its still lacking certain features. Let's hope if Avid is listening to release XSI 3.0 without Soft 3D.
Hello,
coul you explain why do you think that maya is not going to have a feature after version 5?
I really liked XSI2 but I found that is quite slow on platform other then NT, the IRIX version or the Beta for Linux that they where showing at siggraph.
And a lot of people do not care to have compositing integrated with the rest of the package 
Anyway very courious to hear yourpoint.
Thanks,
-a
XSI 2.0 will be released without SI|3D. This was made quite clear at SIGGRAPH. Also, I think the thing is, students new to soft don't need to leard 3D, they can just go right into XSI. Its the people that are used to the 3D workflow mainly that need 3D. Though there are a few notable exceptions to this rule (file import / export, and nurbs things, if you need them) in 1.5 I think 2.0 will help to relieve these, and the version after, well, lets just see, shall we?
As to Maya will be done after version 5, I don't know about that, but I think it is clear AW are having very serious problems of their own. I would put more money on SI surviving the next year than AW at the moment. No-one is sparkling flawlessly these days. But the Soft buzz is definately getting polished up, and the Maya buzz is definately getting rather tarnished.
Wow that was rather poetic, wasn't it?
Balgillow.
In the last realeses of maya, in particular v.4, A|W as been cleaning the code to make it possible to support 4 platform and this is not and easy task to accomplish.
I would love to see A|W been spun off SGI to be honest, the maya demos where very busy all the time at Siggraph and the new real time fluid dynamic system is going to be one of the mejot feature of the next .5 realese.
I would not be surprise if A|W in the next version would add a lot of functionality to Maya.
The buzz arround XSI, and in my opision is very justify, is a lot because they are adding a lot of feature each realese but a lot of this feature are base fuction that was simple missend in the previous realese.
IMHO I hope that competition make this market better Maya as been for too long king of the hill and A|W slept on the success.
We will see, I do not beleave A|W would disappear from one day to another there is way too much involved and Discreet could always buy them
Just my .02c courious to see how XSI works on linux because what they show at siggraph was way too slow to be used in production.
Later.
-a
@@In the last realeses of maya, in particular v.4, A|W as been cleaning the code to make it possible to support 4 platform and this is not and easy task to accomplish.
This is why XSI looks good - they've already figured out the cross platform thing from day 1, not day 1001. The problem with Maya is that workflow and expansion are afterthoughts, not core design.
@@I would love to see A|W been spun off SGI to be honest, the maya demos where very busy all the time at Siggraph and the new real time fluid dynamic system is going to be one of the mejot feature of the next .5 realese.
Dynamics are nice, but not everybody uses them. In the past 5 years of production, I've needed particles maybe twice. Personally, I think character tools and the other day-to-day stuff is more important and seeing A|W not even touch this area in v4 is rather disappointing.
@@The buzz arround XSI, and in my opision is very justify, is a lot because they are adding a lot of feature each realese but a lot of this feature are base fuction that was simple missend in the previous realese.
That's only part of it. With XSI, many tools are coming in with better workflow and functionality than the competitors. Take Subdivision surfaces for example, with XSI you can switch between polygons and SubD's at any time and use tools for either on both and textures are preserved/propagated without artifacts between subdivision levels. Also, the IK/FK blending is built-in to skeletons, not some convoluted step-by-step process in an editor.
XSI's popularity is because the tools have been well designed and implemented. Even tools from SI3D are re-designed and re-written before coming into XSI. Softimage learned their lessons with quick fixes and the like in SI3D. They're very conscious and poised not to make the same mistakes with XSI.
@@We will see, I do not beleave A|W would disappear from one day to another there is way too much involved and Discreet could always buy them
Nobody buys a company that can't make money.
@@Just my .02c courious to see how XSI works on linux because what they show at siggraph was way too slow to be used in production.
Having been one of the demo guys at the booth, I can say that what you saw at Siggraph was a late alpha / early beta of XSI v2.0. The IRIX version was for v1.5.1 on an old Octane, and the Linux version was on it's very first build without testing prior to the show. Both cases will be significantly enhanced in time for release in the next month or so. You shouldn't judge software based on betas as they're liable to change before release.
Matt
Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com
@@ This is why XSI looks good - they've already figured out
@@ the cross platform thing from day 1, not day 1001. The
@@ problem with Maya is that workflow and expansion are
@@ afterthoughts, not core design.
Not they didnt sorry, they use a library to emulate windows functionality and thats one of the reason why XSI is slower on other platform, for the UI at least.
@@ Dynamics are nice, but not everybody uses them. In the
@@ past 5 years of production, I've needed particles maybe @@ twice. Personally, I think character tools and the other
@@ day-to-day stuff is more important and seeing A|W not
@@ even touch this area in v4 is rather disappointing.
Again this is not true, they add quaternios support in both the UI and the Trax editor ghosting and improve the non linear animation. That personally I don't see non linear animation as a big improvement in the anymation department but I'm not an animator so....
@@ That's only part of it. With XSI, many tools are coming
@@ in with better workflow and functionality than the
@@ competitors. Take Subdivision surfaces for example, with
@@ XSI you can switch between polygons and SubD's at any
@@ time and use tools for either on both and textures are
@@ preserved/propagated without artifacts between
@@ subdivision levels.
This is matter of implementations, A|W decided to treat subD as separete entity from polygons and this is a arguable choise. I don't mind it personally but they are been a little slow adding functionality to the subD part.
@@ Also, the IK/FK blending is built-in to skeletons, not
@@ some convoluted step-by-step process in an editor.
In maya 4 it's totaly inegreate in the work flow and not convoluted you need to set a key frame using a menu.
@@ XSI's popularity is because the tools have been well
@@ designed and implemented. Even tools from SI3D are
@@ re-designed and re-written before coming into XSI.
Thats matter of taste, I still beleave the modelling tools for example are far more easy and predictable in Maya that in XSI but again is a lot of matter of taste.
@@ Nobody buys a company that can't make money.
Avid did with softimage, and A|W is the only branch of SGI that is actally making money.
@@ Having been one of the demo guys at the booth, I can say
@@ that what you saw at Siggraph was a late alpha / early
@@ beta of XSI v2.0. The IRIX version was for v1.5.1 on an
@@ old Octane, and the Linux version was on it's very first
@@ build without testing prior to the show. Both cases will
@@ be significantly enhanced in time for release in the next
@@ month or so. You shouldn't judge software based on betas
@@ as they're liable to change before release.
People do not change machine each realese of software, Maya for LINUX/IRIX and NT are all performing well because they port the core and the UI everytime thats the reason they have to spend time to port realeses to other system.
This is a lost cause, I not argueing that XSI is a wrost or better product but they have a long way to go to make it in production for big studios.
I'm personally very iompressed with v1.5 and really looking forward for v.2.0 but I would like to see a fast and stable product on IRIX and LINUX we do not use NT at all, so for now XSI is out of the day by day use.
And on the side note: been a softimage demo guy or haveing a close work relation with softimage makes your opinion a lot of time sounding like a sale speach, sorry hope no offenses taken.
take care,
-a
@@Not they didnt sorry, they use a library to emulate windows functionality and thats one of the reason why XSI is slower on other platform, for the UI at least.
We've been down this path before and you still haven't listened. Windows is not "emulated" on any of the platforms. All XSI code is natively compiled on the target platform using target platform libraries (eg - UNIX libaries on UNIX). The Mainsoft application simply rewires the connections to those libraries so XSI can call them the same as on Windows, but the actual code executed is native to the operating system (eg - if XSI needs to copy something on IRIX, it calls the native IRIX copy command, not a ported windows copy command). If there's any slowdown, it's from the target platform, not XSI. This is proven with the Linux version of XSI which, if you saw at the booth, was quite a bit faster than the Windows version in some areas.
@@Again this is not true, they add quaternios support in both the UI and the Trax editor ghosting and improve the non linear animation. That personally I don't see non linear animation as a big improvement in the anymation department but I'm not an animator so....
The only people who say NLA isn't a big improvement are those ones who haven't used it. NLA is the biggest thing since sliced bread for CG.
In the old days of cel animation, animators used to draw everything straight ahead and on ones (one drawing per one frame of film). Very laborious, costly, and tedious....not to mention prone to mistakes and error. This resulted in animation with crawling lines, jerky motion, and action lacking enthusiasm. Then one day, NLA was born as an animator had the bright idea of reusing cels in cycles and hold patterns and even splitting them across cel levels for more flexible mixing. Arm waves could be repeated, walk cycles transitioned to holds and poses, with cel-level splitting, individual nuances could still be introduced at any time within a character while the main motions continued. This cut costs and scheduling dramatically and improved production quality as the animators were now able to focus on the creative points rather than the tedium of drawing, tracing, and inbetweening lines over and over again.
Today, the 3D animation industry is undergoing the same revolution. Instead of setting each keyframe manually and pressing buttons to form cycles and reusable data, the Animation mixer does all that for you and takes it a bit further as you can blend animation between sources.....blah, blah, blah.
@@This is matter of implementations, A|W decided to treat subD as separete entity from polygons and this is a arguable choise. I don't mind it personally but they are been a little slow adding functionality to the subD part.
Exactly my point. XSI has a better integration. Can you propagate textures between subD levels without warping? I think not.
@@In maya 4 it's totaly inegreate in the work flow and not convoluted you need to set a key frame using a menu.
Yes, in Maya you need to jump through a few hoops before the feature is active. In XSI, it's always there and ready for use with full blending anwhere between IK/FK.
@@Thats matter of taste, I still beleave the modelling tools for example are far more easy and predictable in Maya that in XSI but again is a lot of matter of taste.
The fact A|W waited until v4.0 to address workflow issues says it all for me.
##Nobody buys a company that can't make money.
@@Avid did with softimage, and A|W is the only branch of SGI that is actally making money.
When Avid purchased Softimage, they were making money. Don't forget, Softimage makes DS too.
@@People do not change machine each realese of software, Maya for LINUX/IRIX and NT are all performing well because they port the core and the UI everytime thats the reason they have to spend time to port realeses to other system.
That's also why there are discrepencies between platforms. Maya for Linux and MacOSX are out of sync with each other and out of sync with the IRIX and NT versions. Development on the IRIX and NT versions have been hampered too as resources have been diverted. Everytime they add a platform, development will slow down. Softimage went through this with SI3D....and that's one of the reasons they choose the mainsoft path for XSI - less hassle.
XSI v2.0 will ship on all platforms at the same time because Softimage thought out the process. On top of that, they were still able to implement 2500 new features in a matter of months, not years. That's not a sales pitch - that's a fact.
@@This is a lost cause, I not argueing that XSI is a wrost or better product but they have a long way to go to make it in production for big studios.
Think again:
http://www.softimage.com/corporate/press/p...\_cinegroupe.htm
@@I'm personally very iompressed with v1.5 and really looking forward for v.2.0 but I would like to see a fast and stable product on IRIX and LINUX we do not use NT at all, so for now XSI is out of the day by day use.
For your situation, you'd probably want to lean towards XSI on Linux. In many instances, XSI Linux is faster than XSI Windows. v2.0 will be out soon.
@@And on the side note: been a softimage demo guy or haveing a close work relation with softimage makes your opinion a lot of time sounding like a sale speach, sorry hope no offenses taken.
I'm not a Softimage employee or demo guy. I was asked to attend to represent a training center due to my knowledge of the software. The training center just so happened to be stationed in the main booth.
I don't contribute to these forums in the mode of sales pitch. I do it because I like to help people. XSI is a relatively new product and a great number of people still aren't familiar with the details. When somebody, such as yourself, spews untruths, it hurts my business as it repels clients under false pretenses. So naturally i'm going to speak up. The fact you are a Maya user introduces your own bias to disbelief or discrediting other applications whether you state so or not (as evidenced above). You claim you are not an animator, but stake Maya's animation tools to be better. You claim XSI is emulated on other platforms, but you are not an XSI user nor use Windows machines in your studio. Please, if you are unsure of the facts, don't say something just to say something. Whether you realize it or not, it's damaging to others.
Matt
Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com
Most schools (including State University of New York/ F.I.T.) are teaching Soft students XSI and 3D due to Softimage based studios relying on both packages. I don't know too many shops using solely XSI for production especially in NYC. Perhaps, this may change with XSI v.2 but highly doubt it if Avid is releasing Soft 3D v.4.0 this Fall. After testing XSI v.1.0 last summer the package was promising but constant crashes and a lack of a dope sheet. Made me sum up it wasn't ready for production especially with my crew. The reason why Maya and 3ds max pipeline was achieved to utilize their specific strength.
But I'm not a software propaganda enthusiast I believe the best tool should be utilized with the proper project. As a character animation director/ college professor user friendly tools is essential for the 2D trained artists. XSI v.2 is going in the right direction with outstanding animation controls that isn't intimating. Their new technology for character rigging, mixer/ NLA, IK/FK blending (influenced from Mirai I imagine), UV texture editor, clever IPR controls, integrated compositing for pre-comp (very 3ds max) and render tree is impressive. But it remains to be seen if the industry is willing to pick it up and how difficult finding mass talent qualified in XSI from a HR perspective. For my money, I see XSI having a bright future if they keep it up and consider a lower price to compete ($3k-$4k). To the Soft demo jock: Improve the nurbs modeling feature and dynamic system.
As for Alias/ Wavefront, Maya is dominated in the highend market thanks to its early release before 'Sumatra'. The package is technically ahead compared to old Soft 3D. Modeling tools is amazing and sculpted. Dynamic system is every TD's favorite toy next to Houdini. New animation tools in version 4.0 is also well deserved -- onion skinning, IK/FK blending (a Mirai influence), quaternion IK engine and Trax (abit buggy). But their character set-up tools haven't changed much since release 1.0. So much of rigging in Maya is MEL scripting to advance the animation controls
Same count for you, you are not a maya user and you are not using maya in production. I know how to animate in maya, I don't do it because is not my job.
We have XSI running on IRIX and I personally find it slow and not stable, other people here have the same feeling. This doesnt mean that we will never switch, you don't know maya as well as softimage I imagine and you should double check too.
The emulation that I'm talking about I would make a point that I might have used the wrong word but XSI doesnt use the standard X library to draw the UI and to do system calls, of course the code is native for each platform.
As I was say is a lost cause, and I don't think I care about the software that I use until that I can find a good job with Maya I'll use maya otherwise I use XSI or Houdini or Scultp 3d I don't care.
Major production are using maya, and so I do that too. One house is Montreal doesnt make a market for 3d movie.
Anyway just my .02c.
Also I would like to point out that maya was available many years before XSI and of course the tecnologies used in Maya could look older but as today but standign and they will add more and more, we havent see the tip of the iceberg for both XSI and Maya and some how Max.
Anyway good luck to you to find a job in major studios with XSI as today.
later,
-a
@@Same count for you, you are not a maya user and you are not using maya in production. I know how to animate in maya, I don't do it because is not my job.
@@We have XSI running on IRIX and I personally find it slow and not stable, other people here have the same feeling. This doesnt mean that we will never switch, you don't know maya as well as softimage I imagine and you should double check too.
I'm not the one saying Maya this Maya that. Read the title of this thread.
@@.....but XSI doesnt use the standard X library to draw the UI and to do system calls, .......
If I were a bettin' man, I wouldn't say that either. SI3D was almost entirely OpenGL - even the buttons. XSI is moving along similar lines. Besides, X is slooooooooow and glitchy. Always has been.
@@As I was say is a lost cause, and I don't think I care about the software that I use until that I can find a good job with Maya I'll use maya otherwise I use XSI or Houdini or Scultp 3d I don't care.
Then stop arguing about Maya when the thread is about XSI and SI3D.
@@Major production are using maya, and so I do that too. One house is Montreal doesnt make a market for 3d movie.
You said big house, I gave you a big house. End of story.
quote
"Anyway good luck to you to find a job in major studios with XSI as today"
I "just" startet working in Denmarks largest game studio, where I do the HiRes load images. I
"And a lot of people do not care to have compositing integrated with the rest of the package "
I wouldnt consider this as just another comping module -
you can of course still comp your final outputs(s) however
you like - but the thing is you will be able to do some really
interesting things -
eg: - control blur or object opacity by distance from camera
- control color or whatever by any transformation parameter.
It should open up an entirely new area of creativity - if you've
got the imagination that is.
Rotifer
You can, I saw it at Sigraph.
CU Sanostol
shouldn't you already be able to drive things like color via expressions, which of course can link to prety much whatever?
I guess you can conrtol any parameters in your compositing like you do in your scene. The combo is only a part of the scene.
CU Sanostol
[censored], i can not wait any longer.
Funnily enough genius - you'll find the biggest houses still use plain old softimage as much and often more than maya - But if you had the foggiest idea about what you were talking about, and not regurgitating magazine hype you'd know that - and why it was the case.
Big studios, and hack production houses are very different - This reminds me way back of people swearing black and blue that everything that came out of ILM was maya - well most of the stuff that comes out of ILM is still softimage 3d.
Of course all programs are fundamentally the same - it takes a month maximum for a veteran to get the hang of any system, talentless twerps who spent years learning one package always spit chips when technology moves on -
- Non smokers die every day.