Softimage XSI - Price drop, any interest?

[Life Style]

Avid lowered the price of its XSI foundation version to $495 including its training DVD's and Mental Ray. Which is an amazing offer for anyone interested in a low/mid end 3d package.

 

I'm wondering if this new deal has sparked the interest of any architectural users, or if anyone has any experiance with the package.

 

I've heard good things about its modelling tools, but they may be more suited towards a gaming or organic usage.

 

I'm going to download the trial soon so I can see for myself, I'm just wondering if its worth my time to add another modeller into my workflow along with max.

[Life Style]

Note: Actual Price Drop

 

Foundation $1995 ----> $495

Essentials $3995 ----> $1995

Advanced $8995 ----> $6995

 

1/4 cost for Foundation and 1/2 Price for Essentials

[Life Style]

A direct comparison chart would be too complicated, so I doubt you'll find one.

 

XSI's workflow is similar to Maya but more based on polygon modelling techniques.

 

I've tried it out a little, but I can't get past that when creating an object, it is always placed at the origin point. I'm too stuck im my Max mindframe of roughing elements in and then refining.

[sicro]

Well Softimage|XSI with MentalRay at this price (

 

How does generic CAAD data (DWG/DXF) integrate into Softimage?

 

Or to make the question even more general, is Softimage a good tool for architectural visualisation?

[TheAllusionisst]

I downloaded the demo and have yet to install it, I will try to get around it and see what the file format compatibility is like. Large download, something like 172 megs.

[Life Style]

The catch of the deal is XSI wants to expand its user base. For $500 you get a solid modeller and renderer, but the workflow is similar to Maya which I personally find difficult for an entire architectural project. But it is a cheap addition to a working pipeline for organic modelling.

 

I know if your looking for a format to tranfer files FBX works between Max and XSI, but XSI can not import DWG or DXF files.

[sicro]

Softimage can't be that bad that it's not worth the

 

What makes me suspicious is that there is for instance no "Softimage" forum in CG-Architect. Does nobody use XSI for architectural CG, because it was previously too expensive? Somehow that argument does not pull, since XSI was hardly any more expensive than MAX, Maya or even Lightwave, which seem to be popular. Maybe XSI just doesn't go well in the architectural CG workflow.

 

Anyway, I downloaded the demo and will give it a testdrive over the weekend.

 

Maybe others can post their experiences here, too.

[IC]

I think it's just a historical thing. XSI and Maya used to be ridiculously expensive and they were really just perceived as high end animation apps.

 

I'm sure the user bases will even out soon. Max can't continue to dominate when it's so over priced while delivering the same features as just about everything else available.

[lordmidas]

XSI is very good at architectural rendering. At my firm, we only use softimage|XSI for our projects. I was the only post in the CGArchitect/softimage forum, that probably why they shut it down. As for the workflow and UI, i think it's really a matter of knowledge and experience. We used softimage since the beginning, so we think MAX workflow sucks. That's probably because we are so familiar with softimage.

 

Check out our site ... you'll see what softimage can do !

 

http://www.1-20media.com