| Q&A |
Jason "Chinny" Brynford-Jones,
XSI
product manager for Softimage
September - 16 - 2005
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"Softimage
XSI Foundation was designed primarily for to be a personal
seat, and is a fully functioning software for realtime
3D games, film and broadcast production."
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| Q1 |
Softimage
is more and more present in the area of Realtime 3D (video industry,
simulation...), is realtime 3D a strategic domain for
Softimage? |
| A1 |
Softimage
is predominately focused on the entertainment industry, and
the next generation of games consoles means there is a
higher demand for tools to address this explosion in technology.
In anticipation of this, SOFTIMAGE|XSI version 5.0 has been
tuned to meet the needs of the next generation games platforms |
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| Q2 |
In
the field of Realtime 3D, what are the key new features of Softimage
XSI v5? |
| A2 |
-
Ultimapper - Film quality normal map generation
- Dedicated ZBrush model import options
- GATOR - enables a library based worklflow for property and
model transfer |
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| Q3 |
What
about Softimage XSI's learning curve? Is it easy to learn? |
| A3 |
For
users new to 3D, XSI is relatively easy to pick up, as it
is designed by and for artists. Many users come from other
packages and while the initial hurdles can be frustrating
it usually does not take long to get into XSi's easy workflow.
Now with version 5.0, we have incorporated Maya transition
tools to help artists ease into XSI. |
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| Q4 |
Softimage
has release some "maya-like interface" to facilitate
the migration between the 2 softwares, what about 3ds max's
users?
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| A4 |
We
have found most new users are transitioning from Maya. 3D artists
are so busy, that for many, it is was not enough just to have
a similar interface, but a complete interaction model, including
the same keyboard mapping and navigation tools, was very important.
As more Max users continue to transition, we will look to offer
at least a similar keyboard mapping style. |
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| Q5 |
Softimage
foundation is a very competitive offer, is it enough to start
with building 3D contents for realtime 3D environments? |
| A5 |
Absolutely!
Foundation was designed primarily for to be a personal seat,
and is a fully functioning software for realtime 3D games, film
and broadcast production |
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| Q6 |
Is
it possible to use the following features in Softimage XSI :
texture baking, pixel/vertex shaders, polygon reduction/subdivision
tools? |
| A6 |
All
of those are available and many, many more. |
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| Q7 |
Mental
Ray render is very well known for it's quality, but it is fast
enough regarding other rendering engines? |
| A7 |
 It
is often faster in some cases. XSI and mental ray consistently
deliver the highest quality renders in the industry. XSI native
renderer achieves control not found in other software packages.
Also, XSI has the only true gigapolygon core with optimization
tools that enable very large scenes to actually render - which
might fail or crash other renderers. So speed is not the only
issue, reliability and is as well. |
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| Q8 |
Softimage
is one of the first DCC editor to offer a 64 bits version, what
kind of performance gain can a user expect from switching to
a 64 bit OS? |
| A8 |
Immediate
gains will be noticeable on interaction and working on huge
scenes that can now be loaded in one go. If these scenes took
more than 3GB of RAM then they would be broken into pieces,
so now that part of production management has been eliminated.
As a bonus, you can also use huge amounts of RAM to help render.
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| Q9 |
What
are the different formats supported by XSI in the field of Realtime
3D (Collada, FBX, U3D...)? Is it possible to export 3D contents
to VRML or X3D? |
| A9 |
XSI
supports all the major players in realtime DCC formats, such
as Collada and FBX. We also have our own native dotXSI
format, which can also be used for export. Since there are so
many formats out there, we make it possible to transfer between
XSI and 3rd party formats using dotXSI or using intermediate
transfer formats. |
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| Q10 |
Is
face robot dedicated to broadcast or can it be used to create
realistic realtime 3d characters? |
| A10 |
Film
and broadcast will be the first areas to benefit - but games
can also taking advantage by using it to create a library of
face setups. As Face Robot becomes faster it may be possible
in the future to go straight into the game. |
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