[XSI]Softimage XSI

[bwtr]

It looks like I am going to have use of XSI!

Are there any comments/advice relating to my current use/understanding of CarraraPro. Hexagon, MoI please?

Brian

[Wася]

Brian, your skills, of course, will be helpful, but almost everything is different in XSI.

Nurbs modeling is not the strongest feature of XSI. It does not even support booleans on nurbs. You can achieve the same results as if you use booleans, but in a more hard way (by using projecting, trimming, constructing mesh from surfaces). And, of course, XSI does not import nurbs from other apps if they contain boolean operations.

In sub-d modeling you will miss some features from Hex and Carrara e.g. fast extrusion, automatic setting of working plane according to the camera position, displacement maps painting and textures painting. Actually it has some brush paintings, but they are weak as copmared to even Carrara and Hex (I don't even speak about ZBrush). However, XSI (unlike, say, modo) has almost all modeling features Hex and Carrara have. But XSI will give you many modeling features that not exist in Hex and Carrara, including local subdivision, weight maps (for making creases and spikes without adding new geometry), snapping options, and many, many others.

Despite XSI has no good texture painting tool, it has a lot of options in UV editing - more than Hex or Carrara have.

XSI is good in character modeling - rigging, weighting (called enveloping in XSI), animating. XSI has rich scripting features and operators stack (somebody at Polyloop called it "dynamic geometry on steroids"). It has no plant generation like Carrara (but there are 3rd party plug-ins).

XSI has top class render mental ray, and you should have to learn how to manipulate the render tree. mental ray is cool in realistic rendering and also have toon shader. Unlike Carrara, XSI Foundation has no hair, but more expensive editions of XSI do have both hair and cloth simulation.

[bwtr]

What a great detailed response!

Thank you
Brian

[Grendel]

That's a good description. Throw everything out you know about carrara except maybe lighting and embrace a different way to do everything. The shading and rendering are the most important things to get a grip on first. Then the rigging if you need it.

Some people like a nodal system and some do not but you'll have to learn to love it for complex shaders. And as Wacr said Mental Ray is great, it can turn out awesome images no problem.

[WillBellJr]

Brian I own XSI and Carrara and I'd say if you're really looking for a "step up" from Carrara, then Cinema 4D is the best way to go IMO - look around sharbor.com to see if anything fits your budget.

Cinema 4D has a unique and refreshingly simply way of doing things that's a good match when coming from Carrara (as I did as well).

XSI (FND) is less expensive and very powerful, and I can't deny having it in your 3D toolbox is a smart move but it's a complex beast that will take a good amount of time (and training resources) learning and getting used to its quirky ways (using the [s] key for viewport navigation is a good example...)

C4D is just way more friendly as far as learning curve and time to productivity... (The price however is not as friendly unfortunately!)

-Will

[Grendel]

Will has a good point, I own all three and Carrara experience translates much better to C4D than to XSI. The pricing system is ridiculous though, you have to buy several modules to make it to XSI's level(AR, Mocca...) and then the price adds up quick.

[Wася]

C'mon, guys.
C4D really reminds Carrara that much, but it does not mean there is no need to learn from scratch.
However, that's the matter of fact - XSI requires the using of training resources indeed. Many of them.

[bwtr]

OK, heres something to comment on--
You are given Lightwave and XSI(full version)---which one would you choose to learn and use?
(Having Carrara6Pro anyway)

[Wася]

Houdini

Here
http://forums.polyloop.net/misc-2d-3...lightwave.html
we had discussion like that.
Keep in mind that LW is more like modo in modeling, not like Hex.

[bwtr]

Thanks.
Brian

[joe t]

Brian,

Why not choose both.

I have been using Carrara and moved over to including LW 9,31. LW is a different approach to get used to and when you do, the options open up.

An add on to LW would be to get the LWCAD add on. it is really pretty impressive and if you do any arch viz work its is a real asset.

The other great point about LW is the plug ins and Lscripts. There are new ones fairly regularly and the list of existing ones is extensive. I have been collecting them as I go and using when needed.

Training can be very helpful. There are several good ones at kurvstudios.com and an organic modeling tut from thegnomonolgy.com site by taron. 2 1/2 hours of modeling and the guy uses about 5-6 tools in modelor. Cost is cheap at $25. Also check out at newtek.com for William Vaughn videos. They are all free to download and use. Covers alot of topics and can really help to learn the program.

I have seen you on MOI and 3D Coat. Andrew has several users that are LWers and moving files between LW and 3D Coat is improving all the time. There are improvements in 9.5 but NDA does not allow to talk about and it is not a production ready release for a few more months. It may help with OBJ imports from MOI.

The user forums at newtek are pretty good and do not forget the spinquad.com site, CG Talk and others that escape me at this moment.

A noticable trend has been for LW Character Animation folks to use XSI for the Char Animation and import back to LW for scenes, hard object modeling and rendering. Also 1 LW dongle can allow you to set up over 900 render nodes for render farm and includes screamer net to manage nodes. Incredible bonus to cut render times.

The render engines are opening up with the addition of KRay which some say will compete with Vray for quality. No flame me please as I am sharing information and learning as I go.

Brian, get all the tools that you can get. If someone offered XSI and LW, I would take them both and start working in each one of them for the softwares stengths. It seems very common for persons to have multiple software programs.

Beware of buying LW add on plugs until you know that it is needed for LW. There are many good ones and I know I recommended one (LWCAD) which I put off but glad I did because it is speeding up modeling with the snap tools.

Well, I hope to have added some info that may have been missed by others. Will I some day have C4D, time will tell. I am trying to keep up with the learning curve of each tool that I have purchased. I like the LW move from Carrara. It really has seemed to be a wise move even if the word vs icon approach is different and it is split into modelor and layout.

Best to you,

Joe

BTW... Did I mention Z Brush given a few renders I have seen o organic models.... better stop before the bank is broken altho it was almost half price at daz during march madness!

[bwtr]

Thanks.
I am too old to go down learning paths for both LW and XSI.
I have to be honest in that I may not be able to handle either.
The XSI UI looks far more logical an app to me at this stage.

[Wася]

There are many of good XSI video tutors on www.digitaltutors.com. You can save your time (but not money, of course).

P.S. Looking at you, Brian, I think you will catch a cold on my funeral. No matter how old you are.

[WillBellJr]

Its hard for me to say cause I'm biased - my first "REAL" app was Lightwave; I came in at v6.5 so I know it the best.

I say it's also the best coming from Carrara since the surfacing is very POWERFUL and simple (as long as you stay away from the newly added surfacing nodes...)

XSIs modeler just may be a tad better but Lightwave has been the SciFi Standard for years, so it's not like hard surface modeling isn't possible using Lightwave - it's one of the best modelers out there, just a bit dated GUI wise.

XSI is a MUST if you're talking character animation...

Which would I get? XSI is a more "complete" package, it's just harder to use - Lightwave is simpler to learn but leaves you desiring when it comes to CA and sexy GUIs.

-Will

[bwtr]

I have been asking about Plant/Terrain and Sky plugins for XSI and most surprised, not only that they are not part of XSI, but the quality of the apps/plugins offered!

Has anyone suggestions on how best to export those three, for use in XSI, from Carrara please?
Brian

[Grendel]

I would look into Ozone for sky or maybe use a cheap version of Vue for it all.

I am curious why you are starting another app. Have you hit a ceiling in what Carrara can do for you? You had lightwave already and did not produce anything with it, are you going to do the same with XSI? It's going to take some effort on your part to learn it and use it, if you're not willing to do it then I would'nt bother.

[Thomas]

I saw some crazy stuff at the Softimage user group meeting in germany this monday.. something that will be announce soon I think and this is another reason for me to look more indepth in Softimage and not Maya as I wanted to do first
to do it faster about.. ICE : http://www.tobiasdeml.com/blog/?p=49 (I can't post photos, sorry

[bwtr]

Thanks Thomas.
Grendell.
I find LW just an illogical mess to work with--Blender is better!
XSI, though extremely complex, seems to be far more logical in it's approach.

To test XSI things, I just want to make a boat and have it in a lake in a nice rocky terrain, with a lot of trees and sky/clouds to suit----for example.
And I can not even find an example/tute to do all that in XSI, yet!

[Pete Exxtreme]

Personnally to realize complex landscapes i would go for Vue...and a standard modeling program for the extra objects you already have i think
just my 2 cents

[Grendel]

you could export the Carrara terrain and use Arboro or something similar for the trees. Import everything into XSI and render.