Softimage ATI Problem

[coolcps]

I wanted to know if ATI ever fixed the raycasting problem that occurs with all of the radeon cards? I really want to start working in Softimage again, I only use it at school because of this problem on my home computer. I know that you can use hacked FireGL drivers, but I would prefer to use a real fix. Does anyone know if this has been fixed yet or if it is going to be fixed soon? I am considering on building another computer with an nvidia card just so I can use softimage. Thanks.

 

[The Dark Elf]

This appears to have been fixed in XSI 4.0. If you mean the problem with certain tools not working or displaying correctly (poly selection, render region bounding box etc.)

I imagine the next version of the HL2 EXP XSI will fix it too.

Dropping down to 16bit display does fix most of the problems, lowering the hardware acceleration for the display seems to fix all of them. But as I say, seems all ok in XSI 4.0 now.

 

[coolcps]

Thank you for the info. Are there any free versions that have the fixes yet, I know you mentioned the next release of HL EXP will probably feature it, but does the regular XSI EXP have these problems fixed yet? I need to brush up on my skills before making stuff for halflife2 We finally got upgraded to XSI 3.0 at my school before summer from 2.21 I think, and I start school again tommorow so hopefully I can learn some new stuff.

 

[The Dark Elf]

No free versions with the fixes yet that I know of.. Hopefully softmonkey will spot this thread and reply, he should know properly if there's any fixes or new versions on the horizon (works for Softimage)

In the meantime though those fixes I mentioned are probably your best bet. Or.. and this is gonna sound weird. Replace the video card with a cheap Geforce4MX 440.. Seriously. Softimage works surprisingly well on such a low end card. Very well programmed IMO. And there's none of the errors seen on ATI cards.

It's "possible" though, that the problem will be fixed with the improved OpenGL drivers from ATI, when they turn up, if they haven't already. As there were a lot of problems in other apps too, Lightwave for example had some glitches in the modeler app on ATI cards. Thats recently been fixed for the most part with more recent drivers, so the proper OGL improved ones might fix everything.

 

[softmonkey]

This problem has been a long running one on non-certified ATI cards. It relates to some of the driver calls in XSI.
I have never owned an ATI - should really ask for one - but you can try the latest drivers. These will probably be your best bet.

You can get XSI for free/cheap in a number of ways:

• Download the EXP for HL2 (based on version 3.5) which includes all the tools for making art for HL and HL2. This is free forever, and is eqivalent to the the Advanced package. However, there are some limitations.
• Download v4.0 Foundation - a full commercial version of the basic package. Its free for 30 days, after which you can by it for £299 (including 6 DVDs with over 50hrs worth of training)
• If you are a student, then you can get the student version which is the advanced package, with no limitations except it can't be used for commercial work.
• Wait for the v4 EXP which will be soon-ish

Some useul info about the packaging and pricing:

HL2 EXP Download
v4 Foundation FAQ
v4 Model Comparison

 

[coolcps]

Thank you for all of that info, I will try some of the things mentioned earlier to get HL2 Exp working on my computer. As for actually buying that, I am still in highschool and really can't spare the money, but luckily at school we have 3 licenses for XSI and the whole set of tutorials, so I use that quite often there. HL2 Exp is all I need at home, I'll update ya if I can get it to work right with my radeon. Once again, thanks to both of you.