SOFTIMAGE|XSI - The Choice of 3D Professionals -
what's new
SOFTIMAGE|XSI is the most advanced 3D
animation software for games, film and television. Now you can model,
animate and render with unparalleled performance. The XSI Gigapolygon
core, capable of handling massively detailed models with millions of
polygons, is the number one reason why leading entertainment companies
are switching their next generation projects to XSI. Built on the newest
code base and designed for the way the artist thinks, XSI empowers you
to bring your creative vision to life.
 Model
With the world’s fastest subdivision surface modeler and intuitive
tools that make 3D modeling feel like sculpting, XSI’s non-destructive
environment lets you focus on your art. A Gigapolygon core architecture
that can push millions of subdivided polygons interactively lets you
scale your creations to unprecedented levels of detail. With XSI, you’ll
never have to wait for your 3D software to catch up to your imagination.
 Animate
Fast, flexible animation is the heart of XSI. Streamlined workflows
make it easy to pose and keyframe highly detailed characters. You get
more keying done while watching your character in the viewports, without
having to open another editor. Real-time playback means you can see what
you’re doing without waiting for animation previews. A clean, responsive
curve editor and dopesheet make it easy to manipulate animation. Easy
animation layering and mixing simplify the process of breaking animation
into parts and moving it around.
Iterate
XSI offers the best iterative workflow of any 3D package.
Non-destructive tools let you add new details to rigged or
shape-animated characters whenever you want, without tedious hours of
rework. Full mental ray integration means you can generate full-quality
previews directly in an XSI viewport for hassle-free client-attended
review and approval sessions. And with XSI's built-in compositor you can
preview the results of multi-pass renders without switching
environments. Change is good.
 Collaborate
A successful production is a team effort, so XSI features the
industry’s best collaborative environment. Delta referencing technology
offers lightweight, production-level referencing so multiple artists can
work on assets without getting in each other’s way. Crosswalk
interoperability features seamlessly transfer assets into and out of
other 3D animation packages.
Reuse
Working with multiple characters often involves tedious manual tasks
that you need to repeat for each character. XSI saves you time where it
matters most with tools to transfer character setups and animation
across rigs. GATOR transfers any surface attributes — including UVs,
weight maps, skinning, and shape animation — from one character to
another. MOTOR is the world’s first system for moving keyframe animation
across characters, regardless of their proportions or control
structures.
Shade and Texture
From scales and skin, to metal and stone, to cartoon ink and paint,
XSI's Quick Shade technology and texturing tools help you get the look
you want—fast. An interactive texture editor lets you unfold UVs and
place texture maps precisely. The powerful render tree and texture layer
editor make it easy to build complex materials. A fully integrated
customizable shaderball engine renders preview thumbnails wherever you
need them.
 Render
A shared-memory architecture with the award-winning mental ray
renderer built right in makes XSI the best 3D animation package for
cinematic-quality multi-pass rendering. You can delve into powerful
shaders in the render tree and set up breathtaking photorealistic
lighting with just a few clicks. The Gigapolygon core and shared-memory
architecture mean that you can render more detail using less memory than
in any other package. And integrated frame buffers allow you to render a
single default pass that outputs many common channels to separate files.
And with the open rendering API introduced in XSI 6, our rendering
technology partners are taking advantage of our open rendering API to
develop and integrate their respective render engines into XSI with
similar depth and control.
Softimage customers can now enjoy XSI integrations of the following
renderers:
And more integrations are on the way. For more information, ask your
favorite rendering technology provider about their plans for
SOFTIMAGE|XSI integration.
 Paint
and Composite
Can your 3D software edit textures and image-based lighting in real
time? XSI’s built-in compositor is designed to do just that. Based on
Avid’s Matador, Media Illusion, and Elastic Reality, XSI Illusion is a
fully integrated, resolution-independent 2D paint and compositing
module. With over 130 film-quality effects and more than 60 programmable
brushes for 2D raster and vector painting, you can use XSI Illusion to
rough out final shots, touch up your textures, morph, warp and rig
images, create custom mattes and tweak the results of a multi-pass
render – all without switching apps.
Develop
A Technical Director ’s dream come true, XSI lets you use the best
language for the job, offering integrated C#, and support for Python
v.2.5 and .NET compliant languages. A Tools Development Environment (TDE)
gives developers a dedicated environment for customization and plug-in
development. With a completely programmable realtime shader pipeline, a
dedicated framework to host custom applications, and a rendering SDK
that makes it possible to integrate 3rd party renderers, XSI is simply
the most customizable 3D package available.
XSI also supports leading game engines and development frameworks for
next-generation games, casual games, mods for existing titles and even
Flash-based 3D games.
 Download
the XSI 6.5 Brochure
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