First Look at XSI's MR Physical Sun and Sky

[TheAllusionist]

Bullseye, I would agree completely that Max is a better application for arch viz which is what I guess I didn't clearly express in my first post. I also agree that Max's integration of mental ray is much easier to use, XSI's is more powerful, but not as easy. I think XSI's features are to complex for most people, Max is easier to get a handle on. 3rd party renderers, since XSI rewrote and distributed their API most 3rd party render engine publishers have or are working on it, Maxwell is already out, Vray is beta testing.......RenderMan compliant Delight yada yada All that happended as soon as XSI published their API.

The versions you are talking about are part of the era 'The relative demise of SoftImage' they released a program based on new core technology without all the features that SoftImage 3D had or that most software packages had and recommended that you keep your copy of their old application installed and work in it as far as you can. Hey, I bombasted Caligari for doing that with trueSpace in my review, that is just bad business in my opinion, so I imagine people using earlier versions were frustrated to no end.

Price, hmmmm back then yes, but for the last 5 years or so Max is the most expensive program for feature sets by a country mile. Everyone else drastically reduced their prices years ago, everyone but Autodesk that is. Part of their strength, being so big they call their own shots. Pound for pound no commercial program can touch XSI Foundation, doesn't mean foundation is good for architectural visualization.

I realized most 3D apps have problems with CAD models back in the 90s so I invested on Nugraf/Polytrans, so I have no real problem bringing in most files into XSI or the other programs that it is integrated with on my systems. However you might want to look at CrossTalk built into XSI now and the Gator feature is Uber Cool outside of arch viz.

Batch rendering yes, you have a point their, I haven't dealt with having to render any big animations over my system in XSI, not sure about it, the do offer breaks on special addition render license, I just haven't rund into that and I have Essentials not advance, so you obviously paid the big bucks back in the day where it was what $16,995.00? I would expect it to make breakfast and coffee and pull my chair out every morning for that price.

That was actual great you originally started using XSI back when it was new and switched to Max and are very happy. For architectural work I am not surprised at all. Another thing that hurts XSI is that for the most part they are snobs who work in the game or motion picture industry and barely tolerate newbie questions. Quite a cliche that doesn't seem to like outsiders and then wonders why nobody wants to play with them. That hurts them in getting new members for sure also. The thing is that XSI is intended for the studio and the studio employee and not for the sole user. Its strengths aren't tested or that useful for arch vis. It integrates into most pipelines, companies that use Max or Maya also have seats of XSI around for how it integrates and CrossTalk..... Who started the non-linear workflow? None of this means much to archvis.

To re-iterate, I think Max is a better solution for architectural visualization. Branko and Bullseye, thanks for your replies, I actually have fun, I use to do a Mr. Know-It-All type column/thread, it was tongue and cheeck, but I miss doing that kind of thing. We need people to balance my obnoxious demeanor I like feeding off peoples responses.

[Bullseye]

Hi Russell,
I too like comparing 3D apps, its always nice to see what the other guys are doing. Hopefully when I get time I will try Modo.
At the moment I'm testing Rendition, its an interesting progressive renderer. Though Vrays looks awesome too, I hope theres a demo soon for that.

I better comment on the 2 shots.
Definitely a big difference between them, the shadows are a major difference.
I bet it was a lot easy to setup in 3dsmax than it was in XSI all those years ago


Its taken Softimage along time to get 3rd party renderers happening.
I remember I had even thought about getting 3Delight licenses and using MR Sunshines plugin.

I didn't find XSI to hard to use, it just seemed it liked to take the long way round, well it wasn't as user friendly as 3dsmax is.
Like applying a uvw box map and applying bitmap fit was a bitch in XSI.
Max it was one click, locate the bitmap and its done. XSI I ended getting a mate to write a script to do it. Just little things like that that ticked me off.

I loved the node base material editor in XSI, I hope max gets one built in.
( I realise theres NodeJoe).

I didn't pay $16,000 grand for the XSI Advance, I had just purchased Essentials and a copy of Foundation, then a month later they dropped there prices and upgraded me for free. Which was awesome, until I discovered how much Subscription prices were or upgrade prices were.
This is another factor that makes 3dsmax not as expensive as everyone makes out. When I using XSI the upgrade or subscription prices were close to half the price of Advance or Essentials. So thats an expensive route to take. I think they have dropped there sub prices since then.

For importing models buying polytrans was another cost $1500. dollars (something like that). So thats another cost just to get models in when 3dsmax just did it.

But you definitley have to look into Render node costs if you plan on doing any fly throughs/Animation with XSI

Anyway I guess XSI has had a lot of upgrades since 2004/2005 and probably has alot of the issues solved.

[TheAllusionist]

Make sure to tells us about Rendition when you have more to say on it, we like to keep up on stuff, but who can actually try it all out.

I to really wondered about XSI and other render engines, Maya was in a similar situation for a long time. I think it was becuase mental ray was so well accepted in games and motion picture industry that they didn't make it a priority.

I admit a lot in Max is easier to use, but I think it is more involved in XSI becuase it is more flexible and powerful. Hey I don't use XSI that much, not like I am defending 'My Application', just an application I happen to own and use once in a while.

I was mistaken I guess, I had thought you had version 2 Advanced hence the price structure I invisioned. As for Max's maintenance programe, it is cheaper but necessary since no backwards compatibility in the dotMax format. Other programs do have backwards compatibility and you can leap frog and just get an upgrade every two releases if you want and just pay the upgrade price and not purchase mantenance, the XSI resellers will tell you that.

Poly trans is like $395.00 (that is base price additional plugin packages are extra) and is getting to a point that for a lot of stuff it isn't needed since programs do a lot better job with import/export, but in the old days, I couldn't imagine living without it.

But I will re-iterate that I said from the beginning that Max is a better solution for archvis, but if I was going to do character or automotive modeling/animation, I would use XSI. What I really want to get some practince in next is the built in compositer, I haven't really used it much and I think I should become more familiar with it.

modo is coming on strong for how long it has been around and I see it quickly becoming an economical alternative to programs like Max (for arch viz) just because of price. It does have the years for R&D made by Newtek behind it, so I imagine it has a bright future, even if they are a rather introverted group. Paulo and Branko are much more familiar with modo, I have watched some tutorials and done some basic modeling, everything but the layered rendering system is very intuitive, the rendering system is fine, I just found a few things unique when playing with it. Branko modeled the current challenge scene in modo

P.S. Are you saying there isn't a demo for Vray?