Xsi/c4d?

#1

The hi-poly scenes I envision for C4D or XSI are, for example: 1) an interior scene with lots of ornate old-fashioned furniture detailed in ZBrush, historical figures detailed in ZBrush and with hair, indirect light from window; 2) exterior scene with many Xfrog trees, grass, plants, historical figures detailed in ZBrush, image based lighting.

What makes me ask is because of this advice I got: “although i prefer c4d, for your purpose xsi will probably be better, coz c4d chokes on high poly scenes coz of it’s lack of Direct3D support, only openGL.”

Does he mean C4D may choke on the assembling of the scene, the rendering, or what? Do I need a Quadro FX card for my scenes if I decide on C4D? My machine build will be: running Vista with Intel Q8200, 4G RAM, EVGA 8800GT Superclocked Edition.

Will XSI be a better choice?

Thanks.

#2

What “he” means is that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about with regards hardware rendering technologies, but does know that XSI can handle in viewport the geometry in a much better way than C4D does currently. It’s merely about how fast the view renders. Both apps chug down if you have many thousands of objects (for that Maya and 3DMax are better choices currently), but XSI can handle single objects with much higher polycounts without getting bogged down while navigating around them (not talking tool interaction, rendering or anything else just moving a camera through the scene), XSI will do this in OGL, on DX itself while it should be able to handle more with better quality results my own experience with it and XSI has been to avoid it like the plague, running a Quadro card it just dies most of the time and has never been faster for me, just more memory intensive and much slower to start up, but I’m not running in Vista so it may be considerably better there.

With regards your other tool choices in there, firstly if you use the high poly geometry from z-brush in another app then you’re kinda missing the point. The idea is to use the lowest resolution mesh subdivision level and export out the displacement and normal maps. This will in nearly all cases give you the same result, but far more memory efficient and far faster to handle in any apps viewports, also much easier to handle and smaller files. Secondly with X-Frog a factor to consider is that it’s completely integrated in C4D, the whole generation system, but not so with XSI where you import a model made elsewhere.

There’s one easy way to tell what works for you though is rather than wait for anecdotal response on the forums, both XSI and C4D have demos available, download them and try them out. It’s hard to know your level of proficiency, but based on what you’re wanting to do there are other app choices out there too, for instance for foliage/nature stuff there’s even the likes of Vue (which in the right hands can produce some very acceptable results).

#3

The hi-poly scenes I envision are, for example: 1) an interior scene with lots of ornate old-fashioned furniture detailed in ZBrush, historical figures detailed in ZBrush and with hair, indirect light from window; 2) exterior scene with many Xfrog trees, grass, plants, historical figures detailed in ZBrush, image based lighting.

I will be using low to midlevel-poly models with displacements from ZBrush, so I guess it doesn’t matter in that regard only which app (XSI/C4D) I use for my scene assembling, UVing, rendering. But, then, there’s Xfrog trees. Stewart McSherry at Remotion4D has gotten an Xfrog plugin for XSI v7 64 bit out now so hopefully it’s the same degree of XSI integration as the C4D Xfrog plugin. In any case, given all this, I am simply looking at a personal preference for either XSI/C4D in the end.

As you say, demo experience is a good route, but this would require a very inexperienced person like myself learning ZBrush, C4D, XSI, Xfrog all at once to make a decision, hence my question here. In a perfect 3DCC world, everything by all companies would be modular according to function and sold seperately, with a common file format which requires only a couple of clicks to achieve the workflow between brands. :slight_smile:

#4

The XFrog plugin is an importer, not integration. That means you generate your XFrog models in the standalone app, or C4D or Maya and import them in using the plugin.

And yes, the demos are there for a reason, other people will just tell you what they’ve used, what they know, not how things will be for you. Go and try doing what you want with the demos, the users on both forums will be more than willing to help you with any questions you will have. Especially if you have no experience with any of these tools then all people can give you is a sales pitch of opinion, because anything technically relevant isn’t really going to be easily understandable to someone that doesn’t know the tool itself, it’ll just give you “my mate down the pub says” sorts of opinions on these things.

#5

just a few notes:
We discourage appVSapp threads, I’m leaving this up because it’s mostly about you having received advice by someone who shouldn’t have given it, but I hope other forum dwellers will be able to conduct themselves :slight_smile:

The person who gave you advice, without malice and in all honesty, needs to STFU :slight_smile:
XSI has a DX implementation, but that’s for real time shaders, the actual application’s backbone as far as rendering the viewports and some windows goes is OpenGL, same as C4D. And even if it was DX, it wouldn’t be what makes the difference.
If anything, of the two graphic libraries, historically OGL is the one that has always had strong presence in high scalability fields, DX was born as a political move and a widgets and games oriented library as far as 3D goes, an while it came a long way since its inception, it still has that slant to it.

Per, even if he’s a well known C4D butt patter :), is giving solid advice and a correct perspective on the comparison imo, down to the part where he advices you should use both apps to decide what you like, or how robust they are in the context you intend to use them.

They are both applications that have had many (and recent) core revisions and have a passionate dev team. I find they take different directions in many regards, particularly the userbase they try to chiefly appeal to, so if there’s a couple of apps you really need to try side by side to make a decision, it’s these two.

#6

I did learn some things, which is good. Thanks.

#7

Hey guys
I have the same dilemma as Shokan. I’m using 3DSmax at work, but I want to do some freelance jobs and eventualy, if everything goes well, become a fulltime freelancer.

I know 3DSMax quite well now, but buying it is out of the question. The app is great, but it’s not worth 5000€ (yes, I live in europe) I wouldn’t say that if I lived in the USA.

Anyway, I was searching for a good affordable alternative to 3DSmax and I was left with two Apps. C4D ans XSI

I tried both demo’s and I have to say it is still difficult for me to decide wich app to use. Here are the things that I’m most concerned with:

  • Network rendering licenses with XSI are just plain silly. C4D and it’s unlimited NET render module (about 350€) realy are a strong point.
  • ICE vs XPRESSO, it’s really hard to decide wich one is better. It all depends on how these functions will evolve.
  • Rendering, XSI has Mental Ray and C4D has an internal advanced Renderer. The advanced renderer is very good, but I feel like I should use Mental Ray because of it’s popularity.

Choosing between C4D and XSI is not easy. I have the money in my hands to buy one of them and can’t decide wich one to pick, afraid to make the wrong decision.
Did anyone here ever regret to have bought XSI?

#8

Being a user of both C4D and XSI, I can only say that they are both great, mature and realiable apps and you really can’t go wrong with either one - and then strongly emphasize what others have said above: no one but you can decide which one to get, because you’re the only one holding all the info regarding your needs and general inclinations. It’s really that simple.

#9

First, we should ask, what is it you do for freelance? I freelance…and could see owning each application for different projects (though each will most likely get the job “done” in the end).

I’m sure one is a little stronger for say, design and illustration, an another might be better for certain effects and scenes/character animation.

Budget, needs and realistic perceived future needs are where I’d start before considering any application of any kind.

As far as render engines go- keep in mind that it looks as if each application is going to get a good dose of new 3rd party render options very soon. Currently C4D has Vray correct? XSI has 3Delight out right now, an soon we should have FinalRender and Vray.

Keep in mind also that XSI ess. comes with a fairly good amount of satellite nodes depending on how many processors are in your system etc. Many people talk about the need for free nodes, which is a good selling point, but very few individuals/freelancers have more than several systems for this purpose- and should often look to a render farm anyway. With that said- keep in mind that if XYZ render engine is 1/2 the price on a farm of ABC, but ABC renders twice as fast as XYZ for what you need, the point is almost moot.

#10

Correct. It also has FinalRender, Maxwell Render, 3Delight, Air and PRMan.

#11

Both being very powerful apps, I would go with your gut feeling - which one do you feel more comfortable with? Besides that, mental ray is in my opinion a better choice in the long run, vs the c4d renderer - it will take a while to master, but you will get the results you want out of it. ICE is extremely powerful too, and they are exposing other parts of the application to ICE, like kinematics/rigging etc. The modeling tools in XSI are great, but a bit old now, and focused more on character modeling (weak curve tools, and no real world unit support for example), not that you can’t model archi, but there are far better modelers out there for that purpose (modo, sketchup…). I don’t know what’s the situation in C4D…

A

#12

and Fryrender.

#13

Everybody has fryrender :stuck_out_tongue:
And if you have one renderman engine you pretty much have all of them provided you can generate ribs.
How and if they are any use to the largest majority of the userbase is a different discussion entirely :slight_smile:

#14

Of course, though there is a significant difference worth noting between a full bridge with e.g. rendering directly in viewports and via interactive render region, script control over the stream, integration of compiled materials and translation of existing procedural materials etc and a rib exporter, of course such a thing favors specific engines rahter than the general format.

#15

Yes, I was talking about more tightly integrated rendering options.

3Delight for XSI and straight up 3Delight for C4D seem like different things to me. Not trying to start some kind of “what constitutes a 3rd party render engine” debate, I just find the listing of every PRman compatible render engine for an application that has a way of outputting rib files kind of 1/2 there in some respects, compared as to a “fully” supported plugin version (like 3Delight for XSI and Maya).

I’m sure it could be argued the other way though.

#16

The integration with 3Delight, PRMan and AIR in C4D is a bridge, not an exporter, it’s fully integrated as described above.

#17

The integration with 3Delight, PRMan and AIR in C4D is a bridge, not an exporter, it’s fully integrated as described above. Hence why it is legitimate to list them separately rather than as just general renderman support.

#18

My personal experiences with C4D have been great. I’ve found it to be very solid, lot’s of great tools, 3rd party resources and quite a friendly, helpful and knowledgeable community. To be honest, overall I’d rate it highly on all counts.

It supports connectivity to a lot of nice render engines so you have many choices, which can only be a good thing.

Of course, only my opinion based on my own personal use.

Regards,

Joe

#19

Oh that’s good to hear. Seems like one of the few companies giving their user base true upgrades and not just bug fixes and fluff! Not going to name names…

#20

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