Top Reasons to buy Essentials or Advanced

[SheepFactory]

Gator , Scops , Compositor , Support.

[Leonardo Vega]

Sheep: Is that Essentials or Advanced? What's scops? :)

[SheepFactory]

those are all essentials. scops are scripted operators , its what the good td's need to make magic happen :)

jaco can explain better.

[dwigfor]

Primary reason I bought Essentials over Foundation was for the dongle. I've got a laptop and a desktop, so I can move to whichever computer I feel like.

[Leonardo Vega]

Although I don't own Essentials, I like the compositer, 64-bit and gator.

- Leo

[thorn3d]

My first version was ESS 4.2

Scops was the big one for me. Though i havent used it yet, the compositor was also a factor. Not to mention upgradability via the support contract.

In v5 - bring on Gator ;)

thorn

[Shenan]

David, does the Foundation license not allow you to install it on more than one computer, even if you only use one at a time?

[MJV]

My first version was ESS 4.2

Scops was the big one for me. Though i havent used it yet, the compositor was also a factor.thorn

Didn't you say you don't use that either? :)

[thorn3d]

Nope, havent used the compositor.

But, the paint-on abilities are something nice to have around should i ever need to do that sort of thing in the future... it would be great for mask touch-ups, things like that.

thorn

[Mumle]

have 5.0fnd but damn i want hair/fur (advance)

[Leonardo Vega]

OT News: One thing that I found out and it's pretty cool is that you can buy FND 5 for $420 (at www.sharbor.com) and if later on you have some extra money you can upgrade it to Essentials 5 (at a local reseller) for $1500. I know you can buy Essentials off the bat for around $1750, but still... it's nice to know your foundation is being taken into consideration.

So if you can afford essentials now, buy FND and upgrade later :)

I'd love to use compositer to use passes and learn it. I have no clue how to use them, nor do I own a compositing app.

- Leo

[Splin]

a bit more than year ago I moved from maya to XSI, were using FND trial some time to get the hang of XSI. Later as the preparations were ready I moved directly to Essentials mainly cause of the sattelite rendering support. Now, slowly peeking to Adv. It is not only 12(in 4.0 was it 8) cpu support what seems tasty but many other stuff too what helps you to raise the bar so to say. :)

Another positive progress is that Ess now also has 2 more cpu licenses.
Thought it to be also good point to mentioned...

[Leonardo Vega]

Splin, so if I have a studio with two PC's, Essentials can be installed on both and used at the same time legally?

Wow, that would be super!

- Leo

[SheepFactory]

No , only one copy of essentials can be running per machine. You can use the other pc to render though.

[rgwarren]

Don't forget to include the Maintenance in your purchase decision for Essentials and Advanced.

Maintenance for XSI Essentials is $799 a year and covers Tech Support, Service Packs (QFE's) and Upgrades. Maintenance for XSI Advance is $1799 a year. If you have Essentials and are not covered under maintenance and would like to upgrade to a newer version of XSI it will cost you $999 for Essentials and $2249 for Advance.

[Leonardo Vega]

Sheep: That's too bad. It stinks how you have to buy TWO copies of software that is already expensive (unless you go with FND). The 3D biz is not easy for the lil fish.

- Leo

[thorn3d]

It's that way with all 3D software that i know of... i cant think of the last app i used that allowed a copy to run on more than one system simultaneously. Plus, XSI ESS and ADV have dongles, so not like you can just ignore the license agreement and do it anyway.

thorn

[SheepFactory]

How does it "suck"?

why does the lil fish need two copies of essentials to start with. You can work on one comp and render on the second , hell you can get a copy of ess and a copy of fnd if you want for much much cheaper you dont really need two copies of essentials.

Not so long ago these softwares used to cost 7x as much and did not really run on consumer hw , if anything "lil fish" is very very lucky nowadays.

[thorn3d]

Indeed.

Wasn't Maya around $25,000 and Irix-only when released?

Electric Image was $7,000... plus it had no modeler, so add on another $1200 for FormZ.

It's amazing how the price has come down in the past few years; amazing even more than a 1-2 man shop can get 2 nice workstations and 2 copies of high-end software for under $8K.

thorn

[mr Bob]

SOFTIMAGE XSI ess or advanced is not expensive, and I really wish people would just stop whining, xsi in the advanced/ess flavours is not designed for home hobbists, it is designed for professional use and quite frankely at the rates you charage for freelance work xsi pays for itself in months or even weeks.
Threads like this are just pointless and do no help what so ever,and certainly wont improve your skills as a user or even get you a job.

B

[Leonardo Vega]

Threads like this are just pointless and do no help what so ever

The point of the thread wasn't to talk pricing but features. I just misunderstood a "feature" of Essentials. No biggy man.

I should have worded it better. Didn't mean it as an attack. It's me and my brother (hence the name vegabros) that are trying to start a 3D studio for freelance. So it would stink for us to "take turns" on XSI, wouldn't be productive. And our budget is rock bottom to begin with.

Sheep: Good suggestion using Essentials and Foundation. I might just go ahead and buy Foundation for $420 and Essentials for $1500 (price for upgrading to Essentials from FND). This way I have two copies of XSI (FND & ESS) running on two machines and at under $2000 ;) Thanks Sheep!

I figure most of the tools are in FND so this might just work out!

- Leo

[animateddave]

This is pretty simple. Go here http://www.softimage.com/products/Xsi/v5/comparison/default.asp

If theres something you need with a red block but no orange block then by essientials.

[comanche]

...
Sheep: Good suggestion using Essentials and Foundation. I might just go ahead and buy Foundation for $420 and Essentials for $1500 (price for upgrading to Essentials from FND). This way I have two copies of XSI (FND & ESS) running on two machines and at under $2000 ;) Thanks Sheep!


- Leo

AFAIK it's not legal to use FND anymore once you've upgraded your FND license to ESS.

[Saturn]

most important features is Xsibatch

abbility to run xsi wihtout the GUI to do some automatised thing

[Splin]

Splin, so if I have a studio with two PC's, Essentials can be installed on both and used at the same time legally?

Wow, that would be super!

- Leo

I have my main workstation where is XSI installed and other pc's are only helping out in rendering. I know that Ess and Adv should also come with floating license so to say= you install for example it in your two pc's and then you can run it on both of them with one restriction! They both can not be running at the same time!
Dunno, if thats the way how it works...myself I have never had deeper interest about this topic, cause of that, have never done research about it. Better you ask from SI directly.
But thats one difference between Fnd & Ess, Adv license as I have understood.

[lildragon]

OT News: One thing that I found out and it's pretty cool is that you can buy FND 5 for $420 (at www.sharbor.com (http://www.sharbor.com))
- Leo

Hmm where did you see this? It says $485 :shrug:

And the one thing I wish they had in ESS at least was a plugin path to hair/cloth solutions, to spend $7 g's on Adv is definitely not worth it for me right now, and I don't know how good XSI cloth is and haven't heard of any plugin solutions for hair and such, although the developer of Ornatrix was trying his hand at a port . That unforunately is a bummer, because I would pay 5 bills for a hair or cloth plugin (not syflex, I know it's $2000)

-lild

[Leonardo Vega]

AFAIK it's not legal to use FND anymore once you've upgraded your FND license to ESS.

I'll look into it... if not then I will just have to buy a full license of Essentials for $1750 at my local reseller.

Lildragon: It's $420 for the competitive upgrade (I own C4D) :)

- Leo

[ThE_JacO]

Hmm where did you see this? It says $485 :shrug:

And the one thing I wish they had in ESS at least was a plugin path to hair/cloth solutions, to spend $7 g's on Adv is definitely not worth it for me right now, and I don't know how good XSI cloth is and haven't heard of any plugin solutions for hair and such, although the developer of Ornatrix was trying his hand at a port. That unforunately is a bummer, because I would pay 5 bills for a hair or cloth plugin (not syflex, I know it's $2000)

-lild

Soft's old cloth is much better then some people think it is, it has infact proven to be more reliable then syflex in certain particular cases, at least for me.
it has a couple nice features, like working on clusters and considering the neighborhood, or explicit subframe settings, which are lacking entirely in Syflex or require you to hack your way through with a massive figurative axe.

Syflex has its nice sides, and it is an uberfast and relatively stable solver that comes handy in many situations, but I find it slightly over-rated compared to the results it yelds and the amounto of tweaking and hacking required to get there.

there is, however, no hair functionality at all avaliable out of ADV, other then a very basic post shader that can only go as far as basic fur or grass.

[Benr]

I'll look into it... if not then I will just have to buy a full license of Essentials for $1750 at my local reseller.

Lildragon: It's $420 for the competitive upgrade (I own C4D) :)

- Leo

My reseller specifically told me that it was OK to keep using my Foundation 4.2 after I upgraded to Ess 5.0 (though I have no need to).
Ben

[Leonardo Vega]

Thanks BenR! I'll try to communicate with Softimage and confirm. But that's good news!

[EDIT: Just talked to Softimage and it is legal to use FND and ESS together (even though ESS was an upgrade). Woohoo! Score one for the big S! :D]

- Leo

[comanche]

Thanks BenR! I'll try to communicate with Softimage and confirm. But that's good news!

[EDIT: Just talked to Softimage and it is legal to use FND and ESS together (even though ESS was an upgrade). Woohoo! Score one for the big S! :D]

- Leo

REALLY??? That would be fantastic! Thanks for the info, Leo.

[Leonardo Vega]

No problem! :)

- Leo

[lildragon]

Soft's old cloth is much better then some people think it is, it has infact proven to be more reliable then syflex in certain particular cases, at least for me.

no hair functionality at all avaliable out of ADV, other then a very basic post shader that can only go as far as basic fur or grass.

This is actually encouraging to hear (aside from the hair part). But it's too be expected without 3rd party solutions.

thx

-lild

[Leonardo Vega]

I looked for the basic fur shader and I can't find it. Atleast not in the trial version...

Can someone help me find it? :)

- Leo

[ThE_JacO]

I looked for the basic fur shader and I can't find it. Atleast not in the trial version...

Can someone help me find it? :)

- Leo

yes, the search engine can do that ;)

[Leonardo Vega]

Now... if it's a post shader, that means I need the compositer? Or is this a surface shader?

- Leo

[ThE_JacO]

not really.
a post shader operates in post, which means it operates after several sorting and shading operations already took place.
think of it like the shader calculating and doing the comp work at the same time.
the problem with these shaders though is that, being outside a good chunk of the shading process, they aren't read by ray iterations other then their own first ray pass, therefore they don't refract or reflect properly most of the time, if not ever (like SAS for LW).

edit: corrected a misconception - need more caffeine before posting crap.

[Leonardo Vega]

Thanks Jaco!

- Leo

[dwigfor]

David, does the Foundation license not allow you to install it on more than one computer, even if you only use one at a time?

Nope - it's locked to 1 computer.

[mikeha]

Nope - it's locked to 1 computer.

It's locked to your email address, not your computer. You can install it on different machines without a problem. This allows you to not have to call Softimage for a new license code when you buy a new computer.

[catnip]

That's good... but what if your e-mail address changes? Cause if they ever get DSL or cable out where I live, I'm goin' for it! :)

[Cometsoft]

It's actually linked to your network card, not your email address.

[mlmiller1983]

There are a hundred good reasons to purchase the student version of XSI Advanced. You may not be able to use it commerically but just imagine the demo reels you could make.

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