XSI better than 3dsmx?

[spamboo]

i got XSI 3.0 the other day (free of the soft image website) and i was wondering, for graphic design stuff, (rendering, lighting, 3d effects) how does it compair with 3d studio max? is it worth the learning curve. my graphics design teacher can get me 3dsmx 5.1 PLUS brazil PLUS the 6.0 up grade for a little over $500 (its great being a student!) and he can get me XSI 3.5 for $350 plus the traing videos (*insert dramtic voice here* a $150 value FREE!) so which one would u guys recomend/have experiance with. i think i will play around with XSI 3.0 for a little while, i wont be getting 3dsmx or XSI for a month or so after i pay for it, so if anyone knows some good XSI sites that would be great too!

 

[Stone]

This would probably be best on the Models&Skins Forum, unfortunantly I can't move it to there...

I'm sure Evil will when he next logs on, but all i can say is..

Try them both, really both are really down to preferance, although Brazil is a great bit of stuff

so try to try both of them, and see which you prefer because we could give you our opinions all day, but it all really comes down to your taste at the end of the day...

 

[nw909]

It's all personal opinion.

 

[spamboo]

ok thanks.

 

[EVIL]

srry stone I was sleeping.

 

[Incitatus]

In the world of high end 3d packages there is no 'better'. it's 100% dependent on the dude pushing the buttons

 

[Dark-Angel]

well its all pref when it comes to witch is best. i find max to be easy to learn. but damn nothing beats the package and flexibelity of xsi, one of the best rendering engines out there and comes with all most all you need to model, do fx... any thing. i find max lacks in every thing..

 

[synth]

The guys at Valve say that XSI is a far better program overall, and it really is in terms of technology, but I think 3dsMax is a little easier to use.

 

[Jaenos]

They both have strength and weaknesses, I honestly hate 3dsMax, but I haven't touched it in 3 years; things change, and they change fast.

Valve says XSI is better because by doing so they get free licenses from XSI; most likely, or something else in the deal, hehe.

But for what Valve was doing, it does have a lot of animation advantages and is just easy to use for face shapes and such. Modeling is great in XSI, but I believe with the new Maya 5 it is about the same there as well.

One thing can be said, XSI is probably better then 3dsMax when working with HL2. All these leaked dev screenshots and such just looks like a very straight conversion of a XSI model into Hl2... then again there still could be teh same added support for max, who knows.

 

[TripleDES]

Regarding that I love the brazil renderer, nothing's getting me away from 3DSMax, until Splutterfish made a XSI version.

 

[Murray_H]

*sigh* brazil looks so good, i tried the public test version but that wasn't much fun

 

[Dark-Angel]

brazil??? BRAZIL!!!! come on guy!!! you got way better with XSI, its mental ray, and with the rendering tree its sweet

 

[Aike]

Originally posted by Jaenos
They both have strength and weaknesses, I honestly hate 3dsMax, but I haven't touched it in 3 years; things change, and they change fast.

Valve says XSI is better because by doing so they get free licenses from XSI; most likely, or something else in the deal, hehe.

But for what Valve was doing, it does have a lot of animation advantages and is just easy to use for face shapes and such. Modeling is great in XSI, but I believe with the new Maya 5 it is about the same there as well.

One thing can be said, XSI is probably better then 3dsMax when working with HL2. All these leaked dev screenshots and such just looks like a very straight conversion of a XSI model into Hl2... then again there still could be teh same added support for max, who knows.

Yikes! Careful on the speculations.... Valve doesnt get XSI for free.

They wouldnt have switched over to XSI mid-way through a project like HL2 if there werent a REALLY good reason. Even getting licenses for free would not make that worth it.

 

[Jaenos]

Alright, free was maybe a little strong, but coming from an XSI dominate environment I can tell you one thing:

For a well known company to exclaim it's using XSI(Valve and Capcom within the same few months) they're getting a little special attention from the Avid(people who make XSI).

Sure it's a great program and there is a lot of reason from Valve to choose it in creating games; but honsetly there are a lot of good reason not to choose it over Maya, hence why I feel, and yes this is just personal opinion, they are getting something out of the deal with XSI.

It's just how it works, famous company A makes a deal with Avid, Avid then wants to promote this say "If famous company A uses it, why the hell aren't you?" thus, sales go up for Avid. But what does company A get out of it? A slightly better program they have to spend tens of thousands of dollers on? To say famous company A uses XSI over anything else is quite a feather in their cap, and I am sure they had to sweeten the deal with company A to get it.

I just don't see that happening.

 

[RMachucaA]

Actually, EA uses XSI, Ubisoft uses XSI, and Spy Kids 1,2,3 where done with XSI, and if you go to Softimage.com theres a list of game companies using it, and using it for a reason, because it simply ROCKS:bounce:

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Jaenos
Alright, free was maybe a little strong, but coming from an XSI dominate environment I can tell you one thing:

For a well known company to exclaim it's using XSI(Valve and Capcom within the same few months) they're getting a little special attention from the Avid(people who make XSI).

Sure it's a great program and there is a lot of reason from Valve to choose it in creating games; but honsetly there are a lot of good reason not to choose it over Maya, hence why I feel, and yes this is just personal opinion, they are getting something out of the deal with XSI.

It's just how it works, famous company A makes a deal with Avid, Avid then wants to promote this say "If famous company A uses it, why the hell aren't you?" thus, sales go up for Avid. But what does company A get out of it? A slightly better program they have to spend tens of thousands of dollers on? To say famous company A uses XSI over anything else is quite a feather in their cap, and I am sure they had to sweeten the deal with company A to get it.

I just don't see that happening.

well valve did say that they were very helpful to them, like if there was a problem they called them and got it fixed right away, whereas other companies weren't so helpful, but who knows.

 

[Jaenos]

I didn't say it wasn't used, I'm saying it isn't as widely used as Max or Maya in games; that much you can't dispute.

And yes, XSI is good, but like I stated in my original post there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to every program; most companies who use Max or Maya use it out of tradition, they have put money into getting these packages and having their employees knowledge about the subject, it's a bit hard to up and change: hence my skepticism about Valve's choice to just go "Hey XSI is way better then the others"(When, as I said again, it isn't way better, there are just certain advantages and disadvantages associated)


And for the record only parts of EA's internal development uses it(EA being one of the largest gaming companies I felt I needed to state this clarification)

 

[RMachucaA]

And for further clarification, EA Sports is the division using XSI, and maybe others but im not sure.

 

[Jaenos]

And for ever further clarification, not all of EA sports uses XSI, I believe there are only two teams(soccor and something else) that actually use it daily.

 

[RMachucaA]

smart ass

 

[Aike]

Originally posted by Jaenos
When, as I said again, it isn't way better, there are just certain advantages and disadvantages associated

Well, Valve seems to disagree with you there. Though I guess you are right, there are always certain advantages and disadvantages, and sometimes the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages...

And I'll say again, unless you have a darned good reason to change, you do NOT change software mid-pipeline. And Avid giving you a sweet deal on XSI is not gonna be a good enough reason. Its gotta be a showstopper, and the new pipeline is going to have to fix it and be better to be worthwhile. In fact it has to be better than the existing pipeline being 'fixed' with inhouse tools.

As to the deal sweetener, yeah SI went way out of their way to give Valve that extra bit of support and help switching over, seems reasonable. On the other hand, they seem to do that for a lot of people, regardless of size and importance.

 

[Stone]

this is turning into a who's got bigger private areas.....

CLOSED