I looked into SI a bit last night - and the big thing for a dope like me is training. I couldn’t find much on in depth XSI training (apart from a few digital tutors pieces).
Is there a holy grail for learning XSI like there is for other programs? Most of the stuff i found is years old.
here some ice stuff from costa… the guy behind the lagoa physics…
http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=30
Thanks for the tips, everyone. I’ll really tax my download limit tonight. That redi-virus site has a significant collection to choose from, and the others look fantastic.
I already have a digital tutors subscription but they are definitely more focused on other programs.
If you have a few weeks / months free, you could start working through the tutorials on this page 
Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s not worth while, as a LOT of stuff in SI is very similar to when it first came out (ICE, obviously being a huge exception).
There is the training that is on Vast for free- which is older but still relevant for the most part, there is i3Dtutorials (good for modeling), 3Dquakers which is VERY good for tech oriented tutorials, as well as the Thiago Costa (the guy who made the latest ICE simulator Laigo) at cmiVFX . There is also, as mentioned many times here, the training that is on red-vivus There is also the DigitalTutors stuff…AND Caffeineabuse has quite a few tutorials brewing as does the xsi-blog site.
Throw in the si-wiki and well written manual for good measure too!
OK, I know I rehashed most of what people had already written, but really, do people expect SI to have as many tutorials as maya, max, or LW? The kind of user base drawn to si and the number of users over the years has meant that until recently AFAIK, making tutorials and training for SI was never for money- almost always for the love of it. There has been an explosion of stuff in the last two years compared to what there was before.
Don’t forget, the helpful and knowledgeable si user base is always fairly quick to help…
The Gnomon Workshop also has a few titles involving Softimage. One by Vitaly Bulgarov and the others are all done by Aaron Sims.
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to write a quick post and answer some of the questions and “concerns” on this thread- its not everyday you get a call out to write something! (…Luis!) lol 
OK, so I know communication on Softimage Lagoa and how it will all play out for customers has been a little thin so here’s the scoop…
First and most importantly, Thiago Costa’s awesome Lagoa Physics ICE compounds will be included with Softimage as core functionality once the maintenance release for 2011 ships in a month or so!! I believe the official product name will be the Softimage 2011 Advantage Pack and will arrive free for everyone who is current on maintenance / subscription. So everyone- Premium Suite or no suite will be able to play with it. Secondly, Holy cow Lagoa is sweeeeeet! Select an object, go into the all new ICE module of Softimage, click Jello and press play. … really? boing boing boing… really??? I’m sure you all saw Thiago’s video by now, the stuff towards the end is ALL interactive in the viewport, man it’s so friggin fast!!
Alright next I’m going to say that myself and Lagoa were mostly responsible for Softimage NOT being in the stage presentations at Siggraph. The original plan was for me to be showing off Softimage for a few minutes in the theater during each Premium Suite demo for a total of five stage demos a day. The problem was once the Lagoa video hit the web interest in private Softimage demos went through the roof so we had to come up with another plan. After a lot of ideas were thrown around the best one was just to have me in the private sales suites or back at the hotel doing up-close demos. This was pretty much all my decision and how I spent most of the show. The good news from all this is some very important studios were blown away by what they saw are now looking at beta Lagoa as I type this!
Lastly, as far as the suites go I can understand some of the negative comments. A few people at Siggraph told me it felt like Softimage was just becoming a bolt on or a glorified plug-in in the eyes of Autodesk… nothing could be farther from the truth. I know there was a lot of discussion internally on how best to market these new suites with the overwhelming priority being getting Softimage in more artists hands. That’s still Softimages Achilles heel, simply not enough people know how awesome it is, the suites WILL help!
Alright well that’s it for now, I’ll post something soon in my blog on all this too on the-area.com but wanted to give you all a little heads up.
Man…Siggraph wiped me out!!
thanks for info… i hope someone will do some magic stuff with the new ice kinematics and show us a great rig… that would bring the interest for ICE even further…
Thanks Mark for the low down from high up! Glad to hear that you guys were able to get some studios that might not already have a soft insider working the ranks to take a closer look at SI. Maybe once they get their hands on it for ICE they’ll poke around and see how great the rest of the app is too?
Talking to a friend of mine who was helping man a booth at Siggraph it seems that doing a closed doors demonstration might be the only sane way to truly demonstrate certain features and answer in depth questions for experienced users as it can be a madhouse on the floor.
I think the big question now is did you remember to wear your “lucky UV” boxers during the closed door presentations?
Ditto. And just to lengthen my post because I can’t just say “ditto” or the post will not be accepted: Softimage rocks!!!
Wait. What? Lagoa compounds are coming to XSI users “in a month or so”? SWEET!
The xsi list on the suite/softimage’s future has been very engaging and a bit comforting. As long as people continue using softimage and getting it into the hands of more artists, it has a future.
theire kidding!
if i knew this about 2 months earlier… just bought an 2011EduSuite. this aint funny.
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