OT: Opinions of softimage

[tjnyc]

I loved working in XSI. I had to get rid of it though, as maintenance was costing me $2500 a year. OUCH!

OpenGL is very fast, faster than C4D. The Render Tree is by far the best implemented shader tree I have ever seen or worked with. Mental Ray is very fast and the IPR in XSI is clearly the best out of all apps. Modeling tools is solid for polys, and now has a better toolset for NURBS since 3.0. Particle is still a weak element in XSI and I haven't seen any big improvements in XSI in that area since 2.0. Hair is a well implemented feature, started out with Joe's Shave and Haircut API(had problems), but has since moved on to a better improved hair engine. The have their own composting app with the higher end version of XSI, haven't played around much with it. And finally, the animation toolset in XSI is very complete, and NLA in XSI is powerful and is now very stable.

As for dynamics, yes, it has been an issue, but it has been hinted that it will be much improved in XSI 4.0 which should be out by the beginning of next year.

If you can afford the annual maintenance cost, I would say go for it.

[flingster]

what do you get for a maintenance cost like that?
why do they have it?
:shrug:

[jddog]

Hi,
I don't use XSI, but reading what tjnyc wrote I can tell to you that the same things that I heard. I know people workin for Incite (Inciteonline.com) and the really tell approx the same things. XSI is really a "Monster" (in the good meaning of the word) and probably for anim and film production can be a really good choise, easy, fast and stable.

jdd

[MLMckenzie]

I used to own Softimage 3D (3.8), but I couldn't afford to upgrade to XSI at the time. Loved it for character stuff, (the easiest and coolest walk cycles I've done) and if money were no object I would be using XSI right now. However, I must say I have been pleased with my choice of C4D so far, (still learning) and with Maxon's record of innovation to date, I'm confident C4D will continue to improve in the CA department. I guess it all boils down to what you need to do "right now" and if your budget will allow it. Also, check out the demo's before you make any decision.

HTH

[ThirdEye]

"OpenGL is very fast, faster than C4D."

According to benchmarks C4D's is faster.

"The Render Tree is by far the best implemented shader tree I have ever seen or worked with."

agreed, but Maya's Hypeshade's not inferior imho

"Mental Ray is very fast and the IPR in XSI is clearly the best out of all apps."

It depends on what u demand from an IPR. XSI's doesn't cache any information for example, Lw's VIPER does, and changes only the parts u modified in the render. Anyway yes, i wish C4D's render region was as good as XSI's, but we have Sniper Pro, so... ;)

"Modeling tools is solid for polys, and now has a better toolset for NURBS since 3.0."

Poly modeling still lacks some basic tools, have a look at Helge Mathee's coding work to implement some very BASIC features into XSI as a plugin. The workflow is quite good but not as quicky as C4D's imo but at least they have ngons... Nurbs seems to be quite poor if compared to Maya's, a friend who works for Avid|Si assured me XSI has prolly the best Nurbs libraries now available, but their implementation hasn't been pushed very far. I think it's a matter of priorities, they had something else to work on.

"Hair is a well implemented feature, started out with Joe's Shave and Haircut API(had problems), but has since moved on to a better improved hair engine."

Better and i'd add also FASTER, i'd really like to have that kind of hair implementation in C4D instead of Shave

"The have their own composting app with the higher end version of XSI, haven't played around much with it."

And i'd add they're the only one who have a decent inbuilt compositor (well, HDN has that too, but i don't think it's so complete)

"And finally, the animation toolset in XSI is very complete, and NLA in XSI is powerful and is now very stable."

I'm not an animation guy so i can't say anything about that, i've heard XSI is the best of the bunch at CA tho.

"As for dynamics, yes, it has been an issue, but it has been hinted that it will be much improved in XSI 4.0 which should be out by the beginning of next year."

They'll have incredibly fast rigid bodies simulation in v4.0, i've seen some demo vids with some skyscrapers exploding in the editor in real time and even a tennis table match in real time hehe.

If i weren't a C4Der i'd be an XSIer for sure.

[tjnyc]

"According to benchmarks C4D's is faster."

Agree on the numbers, but in real world usability XSI can handle far larger scenes than C4D in both wireframe and quick shading mode in OpenGL.

"It depends on what u demand from an IPR. XSI's doesn't cache any information for example, Lw's VIPER does, and changes only the parts u modified in the render. Anyway yes, i wish C4D's render region was as good as XSI's, but we have Sniper Pro, so... ;)"

Agree, but that will change in XSI 4.0, but even as is, XSI you have to admit is way faster with updates than VIPER.

On another note, XSI is a MONSTER as someone stated, but it is a rather artist friendly application and I never found it to be overwhelming like some believe it to be. It also include an excellent manual set IMHO, some people believe C4D is the best, but I don't think they have seen XSI's. ;)


Cheers

[SeanL]

Does anyone feel like explaining Softimage|3D vs. Softimage|XSI?

TIA:)

[tjnyc]

Originally posted by flingster
what do you get for a maintenance cost like that?
why do they have it?
:shrug:

Maintenance at least in the case of XSI is to pay for 24 hour support, pays for upgrades within the year of the your maintenance contract and funds further R&D into new features. Softimage is know for having one of the best support, and from my past experience with them, it is pretty much true. I had a major problem once with animation data that was corrupted in XSI 2.0 and they stay with me and had one of their engineers work with me and help me resolve. You get what you paid for in a professional maintenance plan with Softimage, but you also pay alot of it.

If however you go off maintenance you will have to pay "back maintenance" to become current, so if you missed one year and you wanted to renew after missing that one year, you will have to pay $5000(2500 x 2) two years and so on. The special they have lucky allows you to get current without paying for back maintenance, but I don't know if they plan on implementing it fulltime.

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by SeanL
Does anyone feel like explaining Softimage|3D vs. Softimage|XSI?

TIA:)


Does anybody feel like explaining 3DStudio vs 3DS Max? ;)

[flingster]

Originally posted by tjnyc
If however you go off maintenance you will have to pay "back maintenance" to become current, so if you missed one year and you wanted to renew after missing that one year, you will have to pay $5000(2500 x 2) two years and so on. The special they have lucky allows you to get current without paying for back maintenance, but I don't know if they plan on implementing it fulltime.

commercial suicide imho.
(paying for support/maintenance can be defended...back paying cannot)

[tjnyc]

Yeah, no kidding, and believe me many Softimage users have bitched about it.

[squidinc]

XSI is overpriced, granted at the moment there is the deal until december, but damn, the usual price is totally unreasonable

and the maintenance agreement sounds utterly rediculous :surprised

[Thalaxis]

I remember several people being rather irate about that --
customers of both SoftImage and A|W.

[MJV]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that you cannot net render without paying exorbitant prices for extra MR render nodes? That would be a real problem for me.

[Thalaxis]

Yes... the last I heard, the base price was around $2500 per
node (regardless of CPU count per node, IIRC).

There was a brief discussion on the Highend3D mailing list about
this; one studio had a setup where they did everything in XSI...
except rendering. For that they used LightWave, launched via a
custom plugin from within XSI. :)

[tjnyc]

Man o man that brings back memories. ;)

With the advent of FBX support in C4D, you can't imagine what a hugh turn around it will be for C4D being the rendering solution for alot of pipelines.

Personally, even if I had the clams to buy XSI + one year maint, I would opt out and build up my renderfarm instead with C4D as my rendering solution.

C4D's renderer is really the best cost/performance/quality out there right now and with the improvements in 8.5 and with S&T, it will be even better.

[SeanL]

Originally posted by ThirdEye
Does anybody feel like explaining 3DStudio vs 3DS Max? ;)

Thanks...

[Per-Anders]

before this goes any further. the point thirdeye is making is that it's a pretty similar thing. Softimage|3D was the old product before Softimage|XSI. It's about as similar as 3D studio (the old) is to 3D studio max (the new), in fact it's a very good and succinct explanation, that is provided you know the difference between 3d studio and 3d studio max.

the two products have continued development on their own seperate paths now. beyond that you can see the differences by checking their spec sheets at softimage.com, xsi being the big brother with mental ray etc.

[SeanL]

Thanks mdme_sadie for expanding on ThirdEye's comment.

I'm willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and have edited my previous post. :thumbsup:

[Shinova]

That exorbitant pricing thing: is that just for when rendering over a network or is that also for individual rendering, like how a hobbyist at home would do?

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by Shinova
That exorbitant pricing thing: is that just for when rendering over a network or is that also for individual rendering, like how a hobbyist at home would do?

You pay some money for every cpu you have, no matter if you're a hobbist or a pro. Anyway a Mental Ray node is about 1 grand, not 2.5.

[ThirdEye]

"Agree on the numbers, but in real world usability XSI can handle far larger scenes than C4D in both wireframe and quick shading mode in OpenGL."

That sounds like a contraddiction, if numbers say a thing why is it different in real world? Anyway on my pc XSI is as fast as C4D for OGL, except when i use a single view instead of 4, it becomes sloooow, dunno why, prolly it's a problem of my card.

"Agree, but that will change in XSI 4.0, but even as is, XSI you have to admit is way faster with updates than VIPER."

Never used Viper so i can't really say anything about that. Anyway i didn't know things will change in XSI 4

"On another note, XSI is a MONSTER as someone stated, but it is a rather artist friendly application and I never found it to be overwhelming like some believe it to be."

It depends. There are a lot of things that are artist friendly, because XSI's workflow is really well organized so you find things exactly where u'd expect to find 'em. But i do think it's still too complicated for a noob, i mean, to put a bump map in a material u have to use a rendertree node for example, let's not talk about Mental Ray which requires a lot of study.

"It also include an excellent manual set IMHO, some people believe C4D is the best, but I don't think they have seen XSI's. ;)"

I have to say i prefer C4D's, matter of taste i think, but i have to admit XSI's is really good too, unlike Maya's for example. The documentation of 3DS Max is quite good too, never tried Lw's.

[Zappa]

Hello Cinema4d and Soft XSI users!!:wavey:

could someone be kind enf to compare the two in terms of just the "modeling" tools and also which one would you choose from an artist point of view.
I would love to preferably hear from peeple that have used both the apps , however any intelligent feedback is welcome.

Thanks
zappa

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by Zappa
Hello Cinema4d and Soft XSI users!!:wavey:

could someone be kind enf to compare the two in terms of just the "modeling" tools and also which one would you choose from an artist point of view.
I would love to preferably hear from peeple that have used both the apps , however any intelligent feedback is welcome.

Thanks
zappa


Ok, here comes a quick comparison. Nurbs tools: XSI's are better for sure, but not that good, generally both sw's are poly/sds based. Poly tools: C4D doesn't support ngons, XSI does. Anyway C4D's workflow is way quicker and more intuitive imo (quite close to Lw's), and if you add Mesh Surgery to C4D (it's just 100 bucks more or less) you have a winner.

[Zappa]

Hey!ThirdEye,

Thanks much for the quick response, I have seen a demo of cinema4D showing a poly object being converted to "Hypernurbs".
Im not sure if you have used Maya, but is hypernurbs something like maya's Sub-D surfaces?
im assuming mesh surgery is some kinda modeling plugin for Cinema4d.
Also i understand that Cinema4d comes it 2 diffrent modules ie XL and Studio...whats up with that?

Thanks again for your reply.
Cheers:beer:
zappa

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by Zappa
Hey!ThirdEye,

Thanks much for the quick response, I have seen a demo of cinema4D showing a poly object being converted to "Hypernurbs".
Im not sure if you have used Maya, but is hypernurbs something like maya's Sub-D surfaces?
im assuming mesh surgery is some kinda modeling plugin for Cinema4d.
Also i understand that Cinema4d comes it 2 diffrent modules ie XL and Studio...whats up with that?

Thanks again for your reply.
Cheers:beer:
zappa


1) Hypernurbs is like Maya's Smooth Proxy (but more efficient and quicker imo) plus it supports point/edge/face weighting, no one else have a so powerful weighting system.

2) MeshSurgery is a modeling plugin for C4D, yes, and it's the best modeling plugin i've seen in my entire life, it basically rewrites more than half the C4D modeling area, it's been conceived and developed by Per-Anders Edwards (aka mdme_sadie) with the precious help of Paul Everett (aka Tapaul), also following the indications of some beta testers and it's available for 99USD at this url (you'll find some movies there too): www.tools4d.com

3) C4D is a modular system, it allows you to buy just what you need, it has a lot of modules:

THINKING PARTICLES: for advanced nodebased particle simulation
DYNAMICS: for rigid/soft bodies dynamics simulation
ADVANCED RENDER: GI (4 kinds of GI: standard, Montecarlo-stochastic, non flickering camera and object animation), caustics, Vector Motion Blur, Dof, post effects, SubSurfaceScattering.
MOCCA: Advanced Character Animation stuff (SoftIK, Cappuccino...)
NET: for rendering across a network
PYROCLUSTER: voxels simulation (smoke, fire...)
BODYPAINT3D: uving, 2D/3D painting.
SKETCH & TOON: new ultradvanced non photorealistic rendering module

The XL Bundle and the Studio Bundle have different configurations:

XL Bundle: C4D core + MOCCA + ADVANCED RENDER + THINKING PARTICLES + PYROCLUSTER + 3 NET RENDER NODES

Studio Bundle: XL bundle + UNLIMITED RENDER NODES + DYNAMICS + BODYPAINT3D

[Zappa]

Hey!ThirdEye,

That clarifies lots of my doubts, thanks much fr the feedback.

:thumbsup:

Cheers
zappa

[DELTAadmin]

XSI (3.5) surpasses c4d in a laot of areas, but....

I hate freezing when working, xsi has the 'good' quality of freezing on systems not found in its specifications, I have no money for that systems.

In a lot of areas it is overcomplicated unlike c4d's simplicity, the same result can be achieved using both apps.

It has some good nurbs tools but... How do U extrude a logo, if u can not extrude just the outer parts of the curve, how stupit it is. I need a lot of typographic work. C4D's extrusion tools is the best I've seen after Houdini's (but that is a complicated one).

[flingster]

i've heard people say xsi is very good at CA and animation in general...is this the case and how is it better than say c4d...or is it hype? i know its not a technical question really but there seems to be so much mythology around in comparing 3d application i would like a good grounding in fact as opposed to speculation.
thanks guys..:thumbsup:

[DELTAadmin]

Lot of company decide based on tradition and business partnership when buying 3D software. They need to retain compatibility, this way they invent into the successor of their previous system.

[tjnyc]

"That sounds like a contraddiction, if numbers say a thing why is it different in real world?"

No not all. Real world usability means actually working with your scene, models, lights, textures and so on with precise selection, navigation, and manipulating those objects. I have always been impressed with how well XSI can handle large scenes and still remain highly usable, I don't get the same with C4D with a large scene, C4D is excellent, but it starts to bog down with larger scenes when it comes to usability.

"It depends. There are a lot of things that are artist friendly, because XSI's workflow is really well organized so you find things exactly where u'd expect to find 'em. But i do think it's still too complicated for a noob, i mean, to put a bump map in a material u have to use a rendertree node for example, let's not talk about Mental Ray which requires a lot of study."

You are right it does depend, but a close friend who was an instructor in NYU CADA program teaching XSI 1, always said that his XSI students really catches on to XSI faster than his Maya 1 class students did with Maya. But, CADA usually gets more professional art/design students with no or little CG experience than hobbiest or academic students.

You really don't have to study MR to get it in XSI, with Maya yes, but in XSI you really aren't focred to. Though on the other hand, I am a strong believer that everyone should know how their renderer works to a large degree. With Maya's renderer, you are forced to learn Maya's hybrid renderer if you want to work around its' flaws and get quality good of it. C4D's render, though most users can get good and consistent quality out it without knowing much about how it works, because much is handled on the background, unlike MR which requires alot of tweaking and playing around. I prefer the ability to really tweak things out though and I hope Maxon adds an advance rendering settings so advanced user can get at the renderer in future version.


Cheers,

[tjnyc]

"That sounds like a contraddiction, if numbers say a thing why is it different in real world?"

No not all. Real world usability means actually working with your scene, models, lights, textures and so on with precise selection, navigation, and manipulating those objects. I have always been impressed with how well XSI can handle large scenes and still remain highly usable, I don't get the same with C4D with a large scene, C4D is excellent, but it starts to bog down with larger scenes when it comes to usability.

"It depends. There are a lot of things that are artist friendly, because XSI's workflow is really well organized so you find things exactly where u'd expect to find 'em. But i do think it's still too complicated for a noob, i mean, to put a bump map in a material u have to use a rendertree node for example, let's not talk about Mental Ray which requires a lot of study."

You are right it does depend, but a close friend who was an instructor in NYU CADA program teaching XSI 1, always said that his XSI students really catches on to XSI faster than his Maya 1 class students did with Maya. But, CADA usually gets more professional art/design students with no or little CG experience than hobbiest or academic students.

You really don't have to study MR to get it in XSI, with Maya yes, but in XSI you really aren't focred to. Though on the other hand, I am a strong believer that everyone should know how their renderer works to a large degree. With Maya's renderer, you are forced to learn Maya's hybrid renderer if you want to work around its' flaws and get quality good of it. C4D's render, though most users can get good and consistent quality out it without knowing much about how it works, because much is handled on the background, unlike MR which requires alot of tweaking and playing around. I prefer the ability to really tweak things out though and I hope Maxon adds an advance rendering settings so advanced user can get at the renderer in future version. :drool:


Cheers,

[flingster]

tony when you say tweak renderer settings it sounds useful to me but what sorts of things are you talking about being able to tweak..probably a bit unfair putting you on the spot when the comment was more a remark but i would be interested in what aspects you would like more control over in terms of tweaks if possible..cheers

[ThirdEye]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tjnyc
[B]"No not all. Real world usability means actually working with your scene, models, lights, textures and so on with precise selection, navigation, and manipulating those objects. I have always been impressed with how well XSI can handle large scenes and still remain highly usable, I don't get the same with C4D with a large scene, C4D is excellent, but it starts to bog
down with larger scenes when it comes to usability."

I think it depends on the graphic card, they are equal here.

"You are right it does depend, but a close friend who was an instructor in NYU CADA program teaching XSI 1, always said that his XSI students really catches on to XSI faster than his Maya 1 class students did with Maya."

Probably even Houdini would be faster to catch than Maya, which is one of the slowest programs i've ever tried, but try teaching someone XSI and C4D, start explaining him the concept of nodes and tell him he can't use a bump map without touching the rendertree.

"You really don't have to study MR to get it in XSI, with Maya yes, but in XSI you really aren't focred to."
"C4D's render, though most users can get good and consistent quality out it without knowing much about how it works, because much is handled on the background, unlike MR which requires alot of tweaking and playing around."

1st you said you don't have to study Mray, then you said it requires a lot of tweaking and playing around, these 2 things can't be divided imo, if you wanna avoid tweaking and playing around the only thing you can do is studying how it works. In C4D it's just a matter of making a model, assigning it a material, making some lights and pressing the render button.

[tjnyc]

Man I could spend all day writing about it, so I'll keep it brief and to the point. Get at the rendering "settings" isn't just limited to the UI options screen, because both XSI and C4D has a fairly similiar sets of options. I like to have the ability to export out my files and make adjustment for batch rendering and make required and necessay changes for each pass in a file. I also like the ability to script within the app using jscript in XSI or MEL in Maya and make adjustments on more available parameters that are usually coupled onto one action in the render setting via the UI in the said app. There just isn't a robust means to go about it in C4D, probably with COFFEE, but rendering jobs often require fast tweaks, hacks and adjustment that needs to be made simply and not restricted to a SDK for implementation. This is very important in a pipeline and one I believe Maxon will need to go in the future to appeal to a more advanced CG crowd familiar with hacking and tweaking MR and PRMan.


Cheers,

[tjnyc]

"Probably even Houdini would be faster to catch than Maya, which is one of the slowest programs i've ever tried, but try teaching someone XSI and C4D, start explaining him the concept of nodes and tell him he can't use a bump map without touching the rendertree."

That is a minor thing at best. ;) I haven't heard anyone complain about that before, but the rendertree isn't always to everyones liking.

"1st you said you don't have to study Mray, then you said it requires a lot of tweaking and playing around, these 2 things can't be divided imo, if you wanna avoid tweaking and playing around the only thing you can do is studying how it works. In C4D it's just a matter of making a model, assigning it a material, making some lights and pressing the render button."

I said "you don't REALLY have to" which was my subtle way to point that one should have to, but your hands won't be tied if you don't. :) Like I said I am a firm believer that everyone should study their renderers and how it works in general.

Cheers,

[neonghost]

"I think it depends on the graphic card, they are equal here."

I would have to disagree here - although I'm not overly familiar with softimage (which is why I started this thread, thanks for everyone's input, btw), but I can guarantee most 3d apps use vastly different memory management algorithms. For a simple yet related example, open a 60mb 24bit image in photoshop, and then open it in bodypaint and note which is the more responsive. The ultimate display is the same (determined by the graphics card), but the scene's responsiveness is determined by the efficiency of the handling.

[ThirdEye]

"I think modeling with polys depends on how one goes about modeling(workflow). For those who rely on alot of spin quad, smooth shifting, extruding and working poly to poly then their workflow wouldn't be so impacted by lack of Ngon, but if your workflow is like mine, where you work as an edge loop modeler, then Ngon is the only way to go. Personally, from experience edge loop modeling has a bigger advantage in speedy workflow and easier detailing. In this regard, you can say C4D has an edge in workflow if you following the first workflow, but XSI has the edge if you are into edge loop modeling."

It's funny you say XSI has the edge if you're into edgeloop modeling (i suppose you mean box modeling) since it doesn't even have a proper knife. These are the words of a friend of mine, who works for Softimage as a product specialist: "XSI for box modeling? Naah it's a poly by poly modeler, use Wings3D if you want box modeling" ;)

"For NURBS, though, XSI is better than C4D with 3.5. It has a more mature NURBS toolset with things like Birail, Curve Net, 4-sided, fit, filleting, trim, and the Surface Continutiy Manager(like Maya's NURBS patching) and other things C4D doesn't have but should have."

Agreed 100% (we do have birail tho, look into the settings of loft nurbs)

[tjnyc]

Originally posted by ThirdEye

It's funny you say XSI has the edge if you're into edgeloop modeling (i suppose you mean box modeling) since it doesn't even have a proper knife. These are the words of a friend of mine, who works for Softimage as a product specialist: "XSI for box modeling? Naah it's a poly by poly modeler, use Wings3D if you want box modeling" ;)


Mirai never had a "proper" knife tool either, and it is the king of edge loop modeling. Can't disagree about Wings3D though.

Cheers,

[flingster]

c4d's knife isn't something i'd say was good either!:shrug:

[AdamT]

Dare I say that Cinema + Mesh Surgery is the king of edge loop modeling?

Just don't make any incomplete loops. :)

[Per-Anders]

or if you do; either have "finish cuts" switched on, or remember finish the loop manually at some point with one of it's cutting tools.

[AdamT]

Originally posted by mdme_sadie
or if you do; either have "finish cuts" switched on, or remember finish the loop manually at some point with one of it's cutting tools.
True, but then you're back to the quad/tri limitation--albeit in a more manageable incarnation.

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by flingster
c4d's knife isn't something i'd say was good either!:shrug:


Why not?

[flingster]

i knew you would ask me that and maybe its a personal thing..but i never use it...i started off using saw/cutter...then julliene..then deepcutliner...and now MS...even now i still go back to saw or cutter occasionally. So now you will say...just cos you don't use it doesn't make it bad...and i'd agree, and yes it does what it says on the tin i'm not arguing that though...but i would add...if its so good...why are there so many alternatives? :shrug:

[ThirdEye]

It's good because it's fast and reliable, and you can use it with splines too. There are so many alternatives because there are a lot of tasks to perform when modeling. Why are there so many alternatives to MS Scalpel? Because it's not so good? I don't think so.

[flingster]

ok then twist my arm...its better than not having one as mentioned earlier! heh heh.
and the spline thing you mention is a good point...
still don't think its good though...nah nah nah nah...:blush:
what i said was knife is not good..imho...i stick by that...the alternatives are better thats all.:hmm:

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by tjnyc
Mirai never had a "proper" knife tool either, and it is the king of edge loop modeling. Can't disagree about Wings3D though.

Cheers,


I think you already know how old is Mirai so it can be excused if it didn't have a good knife. I'll underline the fact it HAS to be used as a box modeler (and pbp is impossible) since it's a winged edge modeler and winged edge modelers (mirai, nendo, wings) don't allow any kind of hole in the mesh (solid modeling).

[tjnyc]

Originally posted by ThirdEye
I think you already know how old is Mirai so it can be excused if it didn't have a good knife. I'll underline the fact it HAS to be used as a box modeler (and pbp is impossible) since it's a winged edge modeler and winged edge modelers (mirai, nendo, wings) don't allow any kind of hole in the mesh (solid modeling).

Yes, knife was born a LW tool, and while it has always been a usefull tool in LW, I never believed Mirai really needed a knife tool though. Even as old as Mirai is, its poly tools has stood the test of time, and has still one of the best poly toolset that many other scripts and plugins have been influenced by over the years for other apps. I still haven't found any other modeling app with a great modeling workflow like Mirai, Wings3D probably being the closest. I hope Mirai 1.5 isn't that far off, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed. ;)

[ThirdEye]

Can i ask you why you choosed Silo over Wings3D?

[MLMckenzie]

In light of this thread, I thought some might be interested to know I just got an email from Softimage offering Softimage3D v4.0 (not xsi) for:
Base version - $747.50 USD
Extreme version - $1247.50
(Extreme includes Mental ray 2.1)

This may be old news to some, but it's about time their prices got more realistic.

MLM

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by MLMckenzie
In light of this thread, I thought some might be interested to know I just got an email from Softimage offering Softimage3D v4.0 (not xsi) for:
Base version - $747.50 USD
Extreme version - $1247.50
(Extreme includes Mental ray 2.1)

This may be old news to some, but it's about time their prices got more realistic.

MLM


Softimage|3D won't be developed anymore, prolly v4 is its last version. On the other hand i have to say this is a legend of a program, it could even handle huuuge poly counts and hundreds of f-curves on a weak pc almost 10 years ago.

[SeanL]

@flingster

If you haven't tried it, this knife plugin is useful ("NC_Knife"):

http://www.c4djug.com/plugin/plugin3.html

:)

[flingster]

Originally posted by SeanL
@flingster

If you haven't tried it, this knife plugin is useful ("NC_Knife"):

http://www.c4djug.com/plugin/plugin3.html

:)

cheers seanl...not one i'd seen...i think i got it covered now...but it is another one to add to the list of knife alternatives! but i'm afraid to say knife isn't good...cos otherwise i'm gonna have thirdeye defending knife... :applause: :applause:

[chikega]

Originally posted by ThirdEye
Softimage|3D won't be developed anymore, prolly v4 is its last version. On the other hand i have to say this is a legend of a program, it could even handle huuuge poly counts and hundreds of f-curves on a weak pc almost 10 years ago.

Also, Softimage3d doesn't have SubD modeling - you had to have a plugin by a third party developer. But, even then, it's not like what we're used to today.

[wurp]

I'm using XSI as my only 3D package and I just love it.

I think polygon modeling is great, it does lack some tools on the paper, but in the real world I think its safe to say that once you learned the package fully you won't feel that you lack anything really, all the tools are very solid and if you know how to use them in combination with eachother they can take you almost anywhere. From what I've seen from v4 it looks like if it will fill the last holes in the toolset, for example it will have a smooth operator and a knife tool, both are available as scripts, but its ofcourse nicer to have them integrated into the package.

Rendering is another thing XSI does very well, you have a nice integration with one of the fastest/best raytracers on the market, mental ray. Even if I feel somewhat limited by the GUI (some settings isnt exposed) you can always export to MI files and tweak them there, which is something you often have to do anyway. Having the system for passes in XSI with the combination of the FXTree (compositing tree) makes it easy to arrange a nice workflow for your rendering and compositing, I usually render many passes for each scene and the ability arrange them as nice as in XSI really makes it very fun to work with.

Texturing is also awesome, specially with v3.5 you have some REALLY nice tools that will speed up the workflow, the fact that textures wont stretch when you subD your object also makes it very easy to work with. Ofcourse you also have the rendertree in XSI which is very easy to work with, It has a few flaws such as a pretty weird way of using bumpmaps, specially for procedurals, but other than that Im very happy with how it does things.

To relate a little to maxon and c4d I think both them and softimage has a very good situation in the market today, they just work on different levels. Both release new updates quite fast and they are always worth the money.

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