Wow, an artist driven node based tool creation system. We'll probably be seeing a lot of user created modeling/animation/etc tools being released for XSI in the future.
Looking forward to 7. 6.5 has been great to me and only have had 1 crash. I'd like to see some modeling tools updated and added after seeing some of the Polyboost stuff but even then it's pretty hard to get me into anything other then XSI. ICE looks like it might be able to add some of those features, guess I'll have to wait until September to find out. Also the particles are looking awesome, a feature people have complained about for a long time in XSI.
Rooster: if I recall ICE can be setup to do nearly anything
Also available on the same download page as the trial is The Artists Guide to XSI
The Artist's Guide to XSI is an exclusive series of video tutorials teaching artists to use the powerful tools and solutions available within XSI to deliver inspiring imagery
weighs in at 1.9gb's split over 3 files. almost done downloading it and I'll comment when I get a chance to look at it.
Edit:
best of max + best of maya = WIN
Sorry but it's more the fact maya and max introduced features that were in XSI previously
Started fooling around with v7 today a little bit, and so far it is incredibly fast. There was a benchmark scene on XSIBase people have started to benchmark their hardware with and I took that scene into v7 to check out the speed improvements. Here are the results:
Machine setup and old results:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Dual CPU Q6420 @ 2.13GHz (OC 2800 MHz)
OS: Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit
Sys Memory: 4Gb
XSI Version: Advanced 64-Bit
That is just incredible 2 to 3 times the performance out of version 7 in view port speed. The whole UI as a whole feels faster and smoother, and there are so many little improvements around that make everything that little bit better. Haven't got around to checking out ICE yet but that is coming up. Just wish there was a bit more modeling and UV tool updates.
Rooster: not that I can tell. XSI is quite solid in both their uv tools and modelling tools.
Ruz: reason there is no foundation is how much integrated ICE is into the core program and it's not a small feature and not including ICE would be completely out of the question. And I have trouble thinking they shot themselves in the foot.
Everyone I know that uses XSI heavily says the UV tools are horrible. I've only modeled in it so just been taking their word for it.
That's weird, cause I love the UV tools and I use XSI almost exclusively at work. When combined with Roadkill I really can't imagine needing anything else.
pretty blown away by ice, in case you haven't seen it in action there is a nice rundown of ice here http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4595
its like midway through. you can even make custom cloth sims and algorithms.. this is pretty huge.
There's more to come too. I was shown rigging specific stuff outside of the scope of this release last fall so they are definitely well on their way to going beyond just particles and deformation stuff.
Anyone messed with the new realtime shader stuff in it yet? I'd like to spend more time there myself but haven't done much with it in the past other than drag a few presets from the netview into the rendertree.
I'm a bit surprised they didn't add any native unwrapper to xsi as I'd heard there would be with this release. It's pretty much the only thing I feel is missing from the UV tools. I use UVLayout anyway but still do a lot of tweaking in XSI. The tools are definitely capable.
Replies
Will definitely pick this bad boy up, totally work the investment!
plus the wireframes looks so darn adorable
http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/try/
Also available on the same download page as the trial is The Artists Guide to XSI
weighs in at 1.9gb's split over 3 files. almost done downloading it and I'll comment when I get a chance to look at it.
Edit:
Sorry but it's more the fact maya and max introduced features that were in XSI previously
Could be nice, although I was a bit underwhelmed by Modo's similar tool-mixing stuff.
how does it work?
terrible:0
hmm not happy that they have got rid of sofitmage foundation. they might just have shot themsleves in the foot there
Machine setup and old results:
And these are the new ones in 7.0
Textured: 66 FPS
Shaded: 77 FPS
Hiddenline: 78 FPS
Wireframe: 98FPS
That is just incredible 2 to 3 times the performance out of version 7 in view port speed. The whole UI as a whole feels faster and smoother, and there are so many little improvements around that make everything that little bit better. Haven't got around to checking out ICE yet but that is coming up. Just wish there was a bit more modeling and UV tool updates.
Ruz: reason there is no foundation is how much integrated ICE is into the core program and it's not a small feature and not including ICE would be completely out of the question. And I have trouble thinking they shot themselves in the foot.
Everyone I know that uses XSI heavily says the UV tools are horrible. I've only modeled in it so just been taking their word for it.
That's weird, cause I love the UV tools and I use XSI almost exclusively at work. When combined with Roadkill I really can't imagine needing anything else.
Although 7 won't matter much for me at work. Maya+Mac OSX workstations...
small but nice touch is that there's no issues anymore with vista's aero theme.
its like midway through. you can even make custom cloth sims and algorithms.. this is pretty huge.
Anyone messed with the new realtime shader stuff in it yet? I'd like to spend more time there myself but haven't done much with it in the past other than drag a few presets from the netview into the rendertree.
I'm a bit surprised they didn't add any native unwrapper to xsi as I'd heard there would be with this release. It's pretty much the only thing I feel is missing from the UV tools. I use UVLayout anyway but still do a lot of tweaking in XSI. The tools are definitely capable.
http://community.softimage.com/showthread.php?t=1964
Looks like there's actually rigging stuff to see right now!