Thread: Softimage releases XSI 7.0

Softimage releases XSI 7.0



Built on a new, highly extensible architecture, XSI gives 3D professionals unparalleled power and flexibility to bring your creative visions to life quickly and profitably.

XSI 7 introduces ICE (Interactive Creative Environment), a groundbreaking technology that transforms XSI from just another 3D product into a powerful and flexible open platform.

Have a look at the new node based system XSI uses it looks darn awesome - but as people say no need to include in in producion until stable versions arrive.

Some of the beta testers say that they have been using ver 7 in production without problems.

But... this is such a huge change in their core software architecture that I would would definitely second your advice.

Originally Posted by rodc

Some of the beta testers say that they have been using ver 7 in production without problems.

But... this is such a huge change in their core software architecture that I would would definitely second your advice.

I have heard to same but generally I would not rely on a first release no mater what software is in question. But yeah it looks amazing and I am a Maya user on mac so I wont get my hands dirty anytime soon. But the new architecture plus the interactivity is mind blowing especially for simulations etc. I am looking forward to see how it grows and if it will knock Houdini out of it's shoes... Perhaps we will see a proper Maya release some time in the future.

I am looking forward to see how it grows and if it will knock Houdini out of it's shoes

lol not gonna happen in the slightest. although the new XSI is a huge step for Softimage, seems to have some awesome new features, (namely ICE) and is going to make artists and td's life so much easier, it wasn't built from the ground up as a procedural application as with Houdini so as much as there's talk about "no limits", unfortunately there are. one advantage is may have is speed though. saying that... I may have to jump into XSI soon been meaning to do it for ages...

From what i heard they took a lot of the operators and converted them to macros made from simple blocks (you can watch one of the demo video and you'll se a developer doing so with a push command). So kinda like houdini.
The biggset plus houdini has is data handling, and i don't know if xsi is capable yet of passing all of its data like that. I'll give it a try whenever it will be avalaible to me.
But, aside from the data stuff seems to me they made a clone of houdini functionality, but without the hassle of dealing with that interface (9 was a huge step forward but it still remains unintutive). So i would be careful before saying "it has limits" only because houdini is cool.