What 3d/graphics software would you rec...

[Jim Hoffman]

I have seen bits and pieces in other posts but not enough detail.

As a starting package for backgrounds / 3d work / character animation - a general swiss army knife kind of application for creating content either entirely in the program or to enhance existing live footage.

There seem to be a few programs that keep coming up - but what do you use/like and why?

I would love an associate/great fine artist to start learning a program. These are very deep I know - Are there programs that are more beginner friendly than others while still maintaining a professional result?

Lets try and avoid the "just because you have a paint brush doesn't mean you are Renoir" angle and stick to the pros and cons of the software.

Thanks!!!

[Brian D. Goff]

I have seen bits and pieces in other posts but not enough detail.

As a starting package for backgrounds / 3d work / character animation - a general swiss army knife kind of application for creating content either entirely in the program or to enhance existing live footage.

There seem to be a few programs that keep coming up - but what do you use/like and why?
Thanks!!!

Take a go at "Carrara" www.daz3d.com
It's very powerfull and imo extreemly user friendly and the best buy for the buck. Here's my gallery http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/member.php

[Brad Hawkins]

Maya is the most common for film work.

Other apps are possibly better for games and broadcast graphics (flying text, logos, etc), but for everything from Pixar style animation (of course they use their own proprietary software, but still, you get the point) to the effects done on something like War of the Worlds, Maya is probably your best choice.

Of course there are other great choices out there (XSI, Houdini, Lightwave, Modo, etc.) that can provide similar or the same benefits/features as Maya, and maybe one of them better suits your needs, but that's up to you to download evaluation software and find out for yourself. All I can say is that I've never heard of anyone regretting that they learned Maya.

Also, on a side note, a lot of people really like Zbrush and Mudbox because they allow you to model things in a very orgainic/natural manner, very similar to actually using clay. And these apps will of course allow you to export your work to another app for animation. Just food for thought.

To really get in depth on all of this stuff you should visit cgtalk.com and search their forums. People there have discussed this stuff at length. But if you were hoping that there was a Photoshop of the 3d market, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) there isn't. Instead, in the 3d market there is a lot of parity.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

Brad

[Simon Blackledge]

Lightwave

zbrush

maya

mayas a bit deeper but the basics are easy to grasp..

Never really got into max but alot love it..

I'd suggest getting on that you can learn 3d with.. if its a lower one.. you may hit a brick wall and cannot do what you want.. but apart from finding where the buttons are no problem with switching apps. 3d is 3d. As is 2D.

oh I forgot xsi. Maybe post on cgtalk or vfxtalk.. fxguide etc... also.

S

[ColinSmith]

If you know anybody working in 3D I'd say get the same software as they use

Any of the software used professionally can produce the goods, some have certain strengths over others, but for a beginner having somebody to ask will be 10x as much of an advantage as anything else.

[betty schaefer]

definitely cosmicblobs - i think the sfx in transformers was done with cosmicblobs

http://www.cosmicblobs.com/

[brake]

I've been a 3DSMAX user for several years and I know a few people that use Maya. XSI has been out for a while, but just recently a lot of post and mograph shops seem to be moving to it. Those three are the big 'do anything you can think of' apps. Cinema4D has made its way up pretty high on the mograph side of the industry. A lot easier to jump right into or so I hear.

I think Maya and MAX have the greatest user/support base. You can find TONS of tutorials and tips/tricks on either of these online.

I agree with the reply above though... If you know someone that uses a particular app and they are pretty good at it, then you have your walking talking answer-book right there for learning.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

FWIW, I currently use Lightwave and Modo mostly. Modo is awesome and is (IMO) the best modeling application out there right now. It has pretty good surfacing and render tools as well. Animation is coming with the next release, which many are expecting within the next month or so. It may not do everything you're after (yet), but it's definitely one to check out.

I'm most familiar with Lightwave, but I would not recommend it to people who are just starting out or who are buying into a new software solution. The reason why is that NewTek's direction with Lightwave doesn't appear very promising and development on it has become rather stagnant. Too many political issues within the company these days too and many suggestions from users, beta testers and even inside personnel fall on deaf ears. Perhaps I know too much...

Anyway, to address the original poster, I've found over the years trying to teach others and in my own experience with various packages -- I've used many and have only settled with LW over the past 6 years or so, while still using Maya and/or XSI on occasion. None are really any more easy than the other and learning curve differs from one person to the next. If you are a beginner and starting new, then the best thing is to obtain the demo / learning versions of some of the primary applications out there. Give them all a serious look and see which ones fit into your budget and which ones work closest to the way you think. Maya, XSI and Lightwave all have limited demo versions that you can learn with or at least explore the software.

What ColinSmith said is good advice -- if you know someone with 3D experience, latch onto them. A tutor or even just a tour guide can be invaluable here.

One other software to consider is Blender. It's free and is becoming rather powerful. Depending on your needs, it could be a great place to start and learn the basic principals and techniques that apply to most any other 3D software. And in the hands of a capable artist, Blender can produce pro results.

[Jim Hoffman]

Thanks - this is great info


It's very powerfull and imo extreemly user friendly and the best buy for the buck. Here's my gallery http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/member.php

I might be dong something wrong but it looks like you need password access


definitely cosmicblobs

Way too complex for me

I have noticed that there doesn't seem to be the "photoshop" of the 3d world. Cool in one way - not so in another. Jeff, your info about company strength is very helpful. This is the kind of thing that costs some $ and a lot of time - so any info on the robustness of companies is helpful. it would be great to know your investments pay off down the road.

Also - in case we bother our 3d friends too much with question - who would you say has the best support - company and user base. Do all the leading companies have good documentation (3rd party or otherwise) and/or publication support as well.

AND... if you were applying for work - is there one or more of these that makes you more marketable

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Also - in case we bother our 3d friends too much with question - who would you say has the best support - company and user base. Do all the leading companies have good documentation (3rd party or otherwise) and/or publication support as well.

Best support? Luxology. Hands down. You can talk to Brad Peebler -- the main developer and founder of the company right in their forums. It's a much larger forum than our RED community and harder to get to him directly, but he's there and participates in discussions. They're very responsive and the community is very helpful. Second to this is SoftImage. Of course, these are my opinions...


AND... if you were applying for work - is there one or more of these that makes you more marketable

Not really. So many different companies use different software packages and often the larger companies will use several. The best way to make yourself marketable is to have a solid foundation in 3D graphics techniques, principles and practices that can be universally applied. This accomplished, a competent artist should be able to create what is needed in any software once they wrap their head around the interface and the software's primary tools. Oh and a killer portfolio and/or demo reel goes a long way too as does experience and credentials under your belt.

You will find that some softwares are used more in one industry than in others... But when it comes to big budget cinema or game development, you'll usually find several different software packages being used on the same production.

[Priyesh P.]

I have noticed that there doesn't seem to be the "photoshop" of the 3d world. Cool in one way - not so in another. Jeff, your info about company strength is very helpful. This is the kind of thing that costs some $ and a lot of time - so any info on the robustness of companies is helpful. it would be great to know your investments pay off down the road.

I think the market is quite evenly shared by now between Maya, XSI and Max. I hate Max and Maya, they're crammed with features but so clutttered it's hard to find what you're looking for.

But XSI is a pleasure to work with. Beautiful workspace, clean and fast. At least for me. And not to forget, it doesn't have those nasty price tags of the other two, at least for the base package (~500 bucks), that's way cheaper than any other high end package on the market, btw.
And something one should take into account: The licensing sceme of Autodesk (Maya and Max) is simply obscene. You cannot sell or transfer the license without shelling out another couple of thousand bucks.


AND... if you were applying for work - is there one or more of these that makes you more marketable
Maya, Max, XSI - that's quite sure, I've read a poll just recently.

[Rocket]

I think the market is quite evenly shared by now between Maya, XSI and Max. I hate Max and Maya, they're crammed with features but so clutttered it's hard to find what you're looking for.

But XSI is a pleasure to work with. Beautiful workspace, clean and fast. At least for me. And not to forget, it doesn't have those nasty price tags of the other two, at least for the base package (~500 bucks), that's way cheaper than any other high end package on the market, btw.
And something one should take into account: The licensing sceme of Autodesk (Maya and Max) is simply obscene. You cannot sell or transfer the license without shelling out another couple of thousand bucks.


Maya, Max, XSI - that's quite sure, I've read a poll just recently.

I'd have to agree, I've taught myself all three of these packages and each one has a better toolset and featureset for one particular thing over the other. As a result, I use all three depending on what I'm doing, sometimes on a single model.

I would however add lightwave to that list. It's amazing and has been the backbone of challenging vfx on a long list of major feature films, recently 300.

I think it depends how your brain works, I know that sounds funny, but I don't find them like NLE's, where really at the core, if you can use one, you can use them all.

I find Max very intuitive to use and was quick to learn, but a bit slow because it's very menu heavy. I like Max for it's basic modelling tools, and I'll often start something in Max and take it into something else later.

For instance, for character modelling and rigging, I don't like Max's physique modifier. It always requires a lot of painstaking node by node modification of weight assignments around joints, especially where two separate limbs are close together (like legs), and also for some reason around shoulders and neck always need a lot of time consuming adjustment by hand.

However, this is where Maya comes in handy because it allows you to literally paint weight assignments over the mesh and you can adjust the "brush" size and falloff. It's great, way better than Max.

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned Z-Brush in detail. I read someone claim it's for more "organic modelling" like clay. This is true to a certain extent in how you use it, however it's greatest strength is in subdividing surface meshes into models of such high polygon counts, the other apps would struggle unless your workstation has upwards of 8 - 16GB RAM or more.

Z-brush shares this ability to handle super high polygon meshes with Vue Infinite, which is THE tool of choice in my opinion for photoreal terrain and large scale earthscape modelling. This was the tool used to produce a lot of the terrain in the Pirates movies.

I think an accomplished vfx and 3D artist can probably manage almost all things with Maya if I am honest, but I find it easier to import part finished models into an application that I know will allow me to quickly do what I want with no fuss and the maximum use of it's built in tools.

This is to say nothing of lighting and texturing, which are arts on thier own. Lighting is what makes or breaks the reality of a 3D render, whether it is a interior or exterior scene.

Having said that, mastering texturing and making effective use of maps on all kinds of channels in a material (alpha, bump, specular... the list goes on!) will allow you to produce truely breathtakingly real renders.

Bottom line, it takes years, there is so much to learn and get your head around. The ability to manage XYZ space is only the start, and sure, it will get you modelling, but lighting a texturing are where it comes together in the end.

If you want to end up getting commercial work, you'll need to know one or more of the following:

3D Studio Max
Maya
XSI
Lightwave
Z-Brush (By the way, I wouldn't consider this a standalone modelling app, it's used in conjunction with one or more of the others)
Vue Infinite

The others, apart from maybe Blender, I wouldn't give much time at all.

Oh, and Rhino... awesome NURBS modelling app!

Rich

[Jim Hoffman]

I appreciate your time and thoughtful answers...

Are there "universal" file formats to transfer work between all these programs. If I started working in Maya and wanted to pick it up in XSI is that an fairly straight forward thing to do?

And what about basic packages with these programs - are they fairly self contained or do you find yourself adding modules/plug ins?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

FBX is the closest thing that exists to an open exchange format.

I say get Max. Every single one of the applications can do exactly the same thing.

The only reason I say Max over Maya is because Maya realllllllly needs a scripter employed to make it useful. If you don't want to learn MEL script then stay away.

Max is a studio in a box. You get a render manager. Unlimited render licenses. It's setup to get you pretty good renders very very quickly. Sometimes you can hit a wall where you get frustrated as the really difficult stuff becomes harder than it should be but for 95% of the stuff you need to do it's setup with more built in tools and presets than the competition imo.

Some people turn their nose up at that, but hell if someone wants to give me a one button daylight solution, more power to them.

[Desert Rune]

I prefer Luxology Modo.

I'm shallow, in that I love it because it has a gorgeous interface. :)

[Rocket]

FBX is the closest thing that exists to an open exchange format.

I say get Max. Every single one of the applications can do exactly the same thing.

The only reason I say Max over Maya is because Maya realllllllly needs a scripter employed to make it useful. If you don't want to learn MEL script then stay away.

Max is a studio in a box. You get a render manager. Unlimited render licenses. It's setup to get you pretty good renders very very quickly. Sometimes you can hit a wall where you get frustrated as the really difficult stuff becomes harder than it should be but for 95% of the stuff you need to do it's setup with more built in tools and presets than the competition imo.

Some people turn their nose up at that, but hell if someone wants to give me a one button daylight solution, more power to them.

Yep, 100%, all things said, I think Max is the best way to get your feet wet!

I find it so interesting how specialized everything used to be. You were either an editor or an animator or a compositor, and now so many of us on this board (I bet, I'll stick up a poll to see) are either dabbling in them all, or are actually really good at all of it. As much as people don't seem to like the talk of tools so much (it's all about the story... I know), it's all the software we love, plus Moore's law in home PC CPU power that has been the catalyst. I think it's great! I love being able not only to do so much myself, but to have the understanding of the whole process from shoot right through to heavy CGI and compositing. I think it can only make you a better artist in the end.

Rich

[Poi Boy]

I'm new to 3d with not much extra time on my hands. After checking around and trying out a few of the apps I've decided to concentrate on learning Modo.
Aloha
-A

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The great thing about 3D now a days is if you pick an app you've heard of, you'll be fine.

Everything does something a bit better than another, but it's not like you can really buy a bad product.

My preferences:
Modeling: Modo or Max w-polyboost
Sculpting: Mudbox for almost everything but sometimes Z-Brush
Animating: XSI
Shaders: Maya
Rendering: Max

Roto/Paint/SlapComps/ColorCorrection: Combustion
Motion Graphics: AE
'Film Compositing': Nuke

[Priyesh P.]

my prefs:
3D:
XSI, modo, Zbrush

utils:
Pftrack, syntheyes, mocha

comp:
After effects(+trapcode 3D stroke & particular, tinder tools boxes 1-4 and genarts sapphire) + Photoshop & Illustrator

edit:
premiere pro cs3

[Jim Hoffman]

Anybody running these on a Mac with bootcamp with any success?
XSI in particular. It looks like ZBrush runs native on Mac just not with the latest update???

[Brian D. Goff]

Anybody running these on a Mac with bootcamp with any success?
XSI in particular. It looks like ZBrush runs native on Mac just not with the latest update???

I think XSI 6 requires a spezific grafics card. Download all the demos you can get and find the perfict 3d package - don't forget to look a Cinema 4d too.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I've seen XSI 6 running on a macbook. Don't know what their specific setup was.

[Jaime Vallés]

Blender is free...

[Mark L. Pederson]

Houdini

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=584&Itemid=219

You can build a house in Maya and and you can build a house in Houdini. It's just that in Maya, you need to engineer the hammer first.

Luxology is a year or two away from being the KILLER 3D app. I said it before, and I will say it again, Adobe is gonna buy them while Apple builds another iPhone model.

[Priyesh P.]

Houdini

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=584&Itemid=219

You can build a house in Maya and and you can build a house in Houdini. It's just that in Maya, you need to engineer the hammer first.

Luxology is a year or two away from being the KILLER 3D app. I said it before, and I will say it again, Adobe is gonna buy them while Apple builds another iPhone model.

I can only agree. Modo rocks, but unfortunately it still doesn't have character animation. That was a big dissapointment for me this year. The other must-features missing in modo are: construction history and node based texturing, the "shader tree" is crap to me, too abstract.

[Rocket]

I'm going to have to check out Houdini, downloading the trial version now.

[Jim Hoffman]

This is clearly one of those times when a website helps sell your product. I'm downloading what demos I can - I just use Mac - but would consider buying a PC when I figure this out...

BUT - since this is a product that will take a very long time to master I admit I am influenced by the gallery work on the websites. I've been around long enought to know that those decks can be rigged - but its hard not to judge. These companies that are taking advantage of the design work of their sites are smart.

Still - wow is it impressive what a little money and LOTS of talent can do.

[Joe Carney]

>>I'm most familiar with Lightwave, but I would not recommend it to people who are just starting out or who are buying into a new software solution. The reason why is that NewTek's direction with Lightwave doesn't appear very promising and development on it has become rather stagnant. Too many political issues within the company these days too and many suggestions from users, beta testers and even inside personnel fall on deaf ears. Perhaps I know too much...
<<
Jeff I just got Lightwave 9.2 and it rocks. Plus if you buy the boxed version you get about 400.00 worth of training materials (books, dvds) for free.
One of those books is "Essential Lightwave 9" from wordpress. A must have for newbes like myself. I come from Animation Master and need to relearn a few things.

Lightwave has unlimited render nodes included in the price. Plus there is pmgMessiah for animation and Fprime for fast High quality rendering if needed and Worley upgraded his license to unlimited render nodes.

I think your info might be a litte out of date. You are right, there was a period when it looked like Lightwave was on life support, but no more I think.
One of the other reasons I puchased is the large 3rd party plug-ins and a large supportive community (cgtalk, spinquad, newtek...)

But..Blender is getting very good and they have world class sculpter and fluid tools. Wings3d is also free and a gem. There are several Renderman options available too. Blender has a built in compositor as well.

If you have 3.5K USD or so to spend, for all around Broadcast oreinted graphics and animation, Cinema4D is great and they can output their renders directly to After Effects projects. I think the VRay interface is coming along as well.

Joe C.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Haha well if you're looking for "gallery marketing" I was at the Seattle Brazil r/s User's Group last night and one of the brazil devs mentioned that the Transformer models and rigs were made in 3D Studio Max by a bunch of ex-Blur artists from the digi-matte department.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff I just got Lightwave 9.2 and it rocks. Plus if you buy the boxed version you get about 400.00 worth of training materials (books, dvds) for free.

Yep, that's a good deal. And LW9.2 is arguably one of their best releases ever in terms of it actually working as it should.


Lightwave has unlimited render nodes included in the price. Plus there is pmgMessiah for animation and Fprime for fast High quality rendering if needed and Worley upgraded his license to unlimited render nodes.

Yes, and unlimited render nodes is one of the primary reasons I standardized much of my work on LW and continue to use LW as my primary 3D software. This is a huge deal when you actually need to deliver animations on a regular basis and with deadlines. I run a render farm here with 24 systems at the moment... It would cost me thousands per year to maintain support for that if I were using Mental Ray with XSI or Maya. FWIW, MAX also has unlimited render nodes, but I don't think their renderer is as nice as LW and FPRIME. MAX really needs to be used with third party renderers like Mental Ray or VRAY.

I was actually trying not to dwell on the subject or turn this thread into a discussion of why one software is better or worse than another. And looking back at what I wrote, I don't think I came across the way I intended. I really shouldn't have said that I wouldn't recommend Lightwave, because I actually would recommend it if someone needs a complete end-to-end solution and they have the need to drop a software application right into existing production workflows. Especially if they're a small operation or a one-man show.

I know Lightwave inside and out and know a few people inside NewTek that have a good feel for the direction LW is headed. Or more accurately, I should say where Lightwave is not headed. Most of my disgruntled feelings toward Lightwave have to do with ongoing issues and shortcomings that are repeatedly ignored from one revision to the next. All too often, the inclusion of new features is foremost on the development roster while addressing various issues like a shoddy network render implementation, impotent multithreading and poor SDK access have received little or no attention for nearly a decade.

To expand (here comes the ranting)... LW does have some serious shortcomings with network rendering. It's a pain to set-up the first couple times until you figure it out because the implementation is just downright stupid. You essentially have to use a third-party render manager software for any significant installations because LW's ScreamerNet II interface is a pathetic joke that has no management capabilities at all. A few years back when I actually had some employees and I was running lots of render jobs, I wrote my own render manager software. It was crude and console-based, but very powerful. IMO, it was more powerful than than most render managers for LW are now. I wanted to put a GUI on it and clean up a few things and sell it, but I never got around to doing that. Just one of those things that I probably should have done. But I actually migrated my workflow to Station-X's Spider and have customized it and re-written many parts of it to fit my needs. Unfortunately, I can't release any of that as there's no rights to do so. I was too slow in my attempts to acquire Spider when Station-X went belly up and it was sold to a software developer in India. This developer has yet to do anything with the source code, but they are unwilling to deal on release or development of the product. Rather frustrating. It is distributable in it's last released form and source code is available for private use. anyway, that's going off on a tangent...

Lightwave also has a brain-dead thread management system. As do many software applications, but LW is pretty bad. It leaves it to the user to manually choose how many threads they want the renderer to use and then it just mindlessly splits the frame into a segment for each thread. In most situations, each thread runs to completion on that slice of the frame and then dies. But in some cases it will circle around and begin another task, maybe, but this is hardly the best way to divide up a render for multithreaded processing. Additionally, LW's plug-in and post-process interfaces were single-threaded and so were the plug-ins included with LW. So often the render would be half done and then lock itself to a single thread as a plug-in runs or other task completes. Multithreading has been mostly broken in LWSN (the screamernet render node software) for years and has only with the release of LW8 actually properly acknowledged the thread setting in the LWSN config file. But it still is often more efficient to run individual single-threaded instances of LWSN per CPU or core instead of a single instance running multiple threads to account for each CPU or core in a system.

If you're getting into Lightwave and will be giving network rendering a try and running on Windows, I have a small utility that restricts CPU affinity and priority on my site. Very handy for LWSN setups.


I think your info might be a litte out of date. You are right, there was a period when it looked like Lightwave was on life support, but no more I think.

I don't think Lightwave ever looked as if it was on life support. It's always been a major player, even though it doesn't seem to get the same respect as Maya and MAX. Most of my frustration with LW is ongoing as I've had a serious dislike for their multithreading model, network rendering implementation and SDK.


One of the other reasons I puchased is the large 3rd party plug-ins and a large supportive community (cgtalk, spinquad, newtek...)

The Lightwave community is indeed awesome. I don't participate much in those forums and whatnot much these days. Probably because I haven't been doing as much animation over the past two years. But I'm somewhat of an old name in the LW community (DarkScience), primarily on the not so much used anymore usenet group. At any rate, I've actually been shifting back into some 3D work lately and I'm currently working on a short for a client as a holiday piece titled "Clockwork Christmas". Entirely modeled in Modo. Rigged, surfaced, animated and rendered in LW9.2. I also have pMG Messiah Studio, but almost never use it. I can do everything I need in LW and have found it to offer little to nothing that LW can't do. Actually my Messiah Studio license is for sale if anyone is interested.

Lightwave is also only 75% complete if you don't have some of Worley's tools. FPRIME is a must if you're doing any kind of fast turn-around render work and most projects in general. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Sasquatch (their hair renderer for those who don't know), hopefully soon. I actually much preferred Shave and a Haircut as a hair solution. For those who don't know, that was the hair/fur renderer software created by Joe Alter (VFX Software Developer on various '90s films like Godzilla). Shave was originally produce for Lightwave and then Maya (and I believe C4D), but these platforms were dropped when he was bought out by SoftImage and Shave has been integrated into XSI as their solution and is no longer developed or supported for other platforms. Anyway, I'm rambling...

I think a good approach for a true beginner in the 3D world would be to establish a budget. Try demo software and the free ones like Blender and see what appeals to them. There are lots of options and none of the major software applications are truly better than another. Well, I take that back, XSI:Extreme is where it's at, but that's hardly a beginner option or even a realistic consideration for most small studios, let alone an individual.

I know it's not the cheapest option, but I would recommend starting with Modo. My next recommendation would be XSI:Essentials. OTOH, Blender still amazes me for all it offers in a free package and only a few years ago, many of us were paying big money for applications that didn't do everything Blender does now.

[Priyesh P.]

I've bought lightwave in 1997 and still use it from time to time, until I totally master XSI.
But Lightwave still sucks, even with 8.0 (that I'm using, but I guess most issues stayed the same with 9.2) (sorry). Why? Read this:
-it derives 90% of it's functionailty by too many little plugins, nearly each one with their own, stupid way of setup
-non-integrated animation/modeler parts (it makes me nuts to do minor changes on models, not to say that it is impossible to animate modelling operations at all)
-character animation sucks
-no construction history
-render tweaks are a pain without Fprime

[ColinSmith]

Ah, Lightwave.... we love to hate it... ;-)

It's the one I know by far the best, so for the work I do there is no point to changing. If I was starting totally fresh I MAY be tempted to go to XSI, but that's another thing....

Multithreading... well I don't know much about the programming details, but LW9.2 is the only app I run that will max out all 4 cores, so.... I'm not sure..... are you saying they are all working, but not producing efficient output?

fPrime..... yes it's 3rd party, but LW + fPrime is still a cheap way to get those kinds of capabilities..... even if you just use it as a previewer during setup. With9.2 LW's native render engine had a big big tweak and it a lot faster in general, and now has pretty good radiosity built in too.

For me, I don't mind modeler being seperate at all..... if it gets integrated and it works I don't mind that either, but as 80% of my modeling is in Rhino anyhow, I am used to modeling in one app and moving it to another. If the Rhino to LW path was smoother that would make a lot bigger difference to me.
Now I do find modeler itself to be in need of a big clean up of the tools... to many multiple options that do vaguely the same thing, differently....... but I guess if I knew it better I'd get past that.

I do think that for a studio of 1,2,3 people LW is really worth a look though, it still offers a lot for the money and it's realatively easy to produce quality renders, but of course you should check out the other options and see what fits best.

Another vote for Rhino for any "hard" modeling though. If you have any kind of CAD experience then you will be amazed how much like AutoCAD Rhino is, while at the same time how much BETTER it is for 3D work. I moan non-stop whenever I am forced back to AutoCAD for just about anything these days.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Yes, and unlimited render nodes is one of the primary reasons I standardized much of my work on LW and continue to use LW as my primary 3D software. This is a huge deal when you actually need to deliver animations on a regular basis and with deadlines. I run a render farm here with 24 systems at the moment... It would cost me thousands per year to maintain support for that if I were using Mental Ray with XSI or Maya. FWIW, MAX also has unlimited render nodes, but I don't think their renderer is as nice as LW and FPRIME. MAX really needs to be used with third party renderers like Mental Ray or VRAY.

Very important point. It can't be emphasized enough what significance a render farm is if you intend to provide any sort of 3D Work.

It's simply not cost effective to sit around waiting for a render in order to continue working and the cost maintaining a renderfarm can sink you really quickly if you aren't ready for it. As far as pipelines go I've only really built from the ground up a Maya and a Max pipeline. My maya pipeline took 3 weeks to get up to speed (with a lot of personal code and duck tape holding it together) in the end I found its sattelite system lacking to say the least and found I had to trick into doing what I wanted in order to render faster than a single system.

Max took 1 day and includes backburner which can queue/prioritize/split and stitch single frames/schedule and a lot more. The difference was night and day. I can't speak for LW's solution since I've never used it, but if it's a good one, it can make all the difference if you're actually doing a lot of work and your time is valuable to you.

btw Max's unlimited render nodes does extend to Mental Ray so you're not limited to its internal scanline. I actually really like the scanline because it's fast, does everything except GI and is a "known quantity" for me since I've used it for so long. And did I mention it was fast? ;) Oh well Brazil is my weapon of choice now a days.

[Priyesh P.]

My conclusion and adivce for starters: get XSI OR Maya, Max, C4D. Or if you can wait another year or two, get modo.
But please forget Lightwave, it's time is over...
(My opinion)

[Mark L. Pederson]

Houdini

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=584&Itemid=219

You can build a house in Maya and and you can build a house in Houdini. It's just that in Maya, you need to engineer the hammer first.

Luxology is a year or two away from being the KILLER 3D app. I said it before, and I will say it again, Adobe is gonna buy them while Apple builds another iPhone model.

Update on my previous post - check this out -

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/feed.rss/8426.html

[pat@hpnc.com]

Take a look at http://forums.cgsociety.org/ . They have a huge amount of members of the forum and sections for each of the major 3d and 2d software packages.

[Jim Hoffman]

That Sony/Side Effescts thing sounds interesting.

I've decided to start with Modo to get my brain wrapped around this whole thing. I'll move on to something else when I get the flavor of this one...

Thanks for the input - any thoughts or ideas - keep em coming.

As a side note - I'm out at USC this week and stopped in the bookstore to see what they are selling to their students. Maya and 3DS Max seem to dominate the shelves. This is such a cool campus...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Wheee... Cell board to work with Houdini. Sounds expensive. Curious choice of partners, I wonder why Sony didn't go after SoftImage? Or maybe they did and it didn't work out? Or what about Mental Images (MentalRay) or Pixar (Renderman)? Somewhat unclear as to what the Cell board is actually going to do here.

Hoffman, Modo is a great place to start. The best thing to do is get 3D workspaces, tools and common practices firmly set in your brain. A good foundation in 3D will enable you to shift to other software pretty easily. Or at least with a minimal amount of pain. Houdini is more specialized and not as mainstream as Maya, MAX, XSI, etc.. There are some things it does very well (better than anyone else), but as a full-featured, all-in-one solution, I would still choose something more common.

[Peter Karlsson]

If your a one-man shop, I would look into a XSI/LW solution.. You constantly run into bumps with Maya, and need a custom Mel script for all the quirks. I would only recommend Maya for houses with more than five 3D artists.

LW has gotten a tremendous facelift regarding shaders/rendering, the last couple of years, and it gets better all the time. The AA/DOF/and Motionblur is beautiful. XSI has really strong animation capabilities, and easy J-/VBScripting that lets you do about anything. Using pointoven forth and back between the apps works really good.

One application seldom has all the features you want all the time, so I suggest trying to look into atleast a combo that works well together! Sofar I feel that XSI works well with all the rest.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hmmm.... I haven't used Maya i a couple years, but I didn't find MEL scripting to be an issue back then. Much more convenient than LW's LScript. But hey, I use LW all the time. And I find that every software will throw you a curve ball now and again that can only be dealt with by writing a custom script.

Maya can be very powerful in the hands of a single user -- I've seen some remarkable results with it from 1 & 2 man operations. I think it comes down to each person deciding what they need for their application. Maya is a very good choice, even for a single artist, if a lot of scripting and data viz is part of the regiment. If you're not comfortable with scripting or don't really have much programming in your background, then Maya probably isn't for you.

XSI's greatest strength is also it's biggest weakness and that is their encapsulated business model. They provide all the tools you need... There's hardly any third-party anything to go along with XSI. Also, if the full set of tools become necessary - hair/fur, fluids, cloth, rigid-body FX, etc.. Then XSI becomes very costly to maintain and to a small 1 or 2 man operation this can be an issue if they're not using it on a very regular basis.

The best advice for someone new to all these software packages is to try as many as they can. Learn about all their relative strengths and weaknesses and then weigh that against the type of work they will be doing.

One other note about LW... While they did do a massive overhaul of the shader system -- nodal workflow, yay!!! The majority of LW is still stuck in the dark ages. The software has improved little over the past decade and many of us long-time users have quit screaming over most of our issues because NewTek obviously has no intention of fixing them. But for a glimpse of that, you can read my prior rant over LW in this thread. But LW is still my primary 3D software I use. And that's because it still fits my needs and budget the best. I don't use it to model anymore though, not since Modo 201. I have a love/hate relationship with LW and I will continue using it until my other tools (like Modo) phase it out completely, which will happen if NewTek doesn't start doing something serious to get back in tune with what users want. The other problem with LW is that you're locked into Worley's plug-ins for much of the advanced functionality and enhanced abilities. Unfortunately, Worley is extremely slow at developing compared to others in the market these days. The shortcomings of LW's SDK and slow development of FPrime and Sasquatch along with their limitations over at Worley has shifted me over to a Modo/XSI workflow for most complicated projects involving hair.

[Joe Carney]

XSI's greatest strength is also it's biggest weakness and that is their encapsulated business model. They provide all the tools you need... There's hardly any third-party anything to go along with XSI. Also, if the full set of tools become necessary - hair/fur, fluids, cloth, rigid-body FX, etc.. Then XSI becomes very costly to maintain and to a small 1 or 2 man operation this can be an issue if they're not using it on a very regular basis.


Jeff, I appreciate your candor. I was down to XSI base or Lightwave. The reason I didn't choose XSI was as you stated, their business model and poor third party support. It's also why I finally left Animation Master. I forgot to mention LWs' new lens accurate rendering was also important.

Haven't ruled out an XSI/LW combo once I get up to speed on LW. For the short term, hair is not an issue for me. FBX, OpenEXR (via plug in) and Collada import/export are.

Looked at PMG as a shortcut way to do animation. I especially like the easy to use puddle/melt tool. I heard they too are working on a new version (over at cgtalk).

Also have AE 7 and am looking at Fusion or Nuke. For some reason the node based approach to VFX clicks better with me than layer based. Nothing against AE cause it can do "most" of what Fusion and Nuke can.

Not really interested in Toxic, but if you use Maya or Max that could be a great tool for you, since they reduced the price to under 4K without the Oracle back end (announced at Siggraph).
If one can't afford Modo, I encourage people to check out the modelling and sculpting tools in Blender. You can export to just about all of the popular formats except FBX (they think the license violates their mandate).

btw, Autodesk announced they are purchasing Mudbox.

Jeff..Once I get my render farm set up I check out that utility.

[Peter Karlsson]

I didnt say Mel scripting was an issue. Without Mel, Maya would be a dead end.. There is so many small bugs in that application, that you need to fix yourself with scripts its unbelievable.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Maya can be very powerful in the hands of a single user -- I've seen some remarkable results with it from 1 & 2 man operations. I think it comes down to each person deciding what they need for their application. Maya is a very good choice, even for a single artist, if a lot of scripting and data viz is part of the regiment. If you're not comfortable with scripting or don't really have much programming in your background, then Maya probably isn't for you.


Having used Maya and Max (and XSI) in a pipeline and person who does write scripts every other day the problem I have with Maya is I have to write scripts for all manner of things that *should* be included. If I'm writing a script I want it to extend the functionality for something I'm doing not to fill in a massive gaping whole in the feature set that should be integrated.

Personally I've found XSI's 'scripting' very limited. They expose a lot of deep functionality but very little interface hooks. Very frustrating.

[Albert Cheng]

The reason why Maya is the industry standard is because it is essentially a toolbox that you can use to customize the application to whatever task and way your company requires. It is more difficult to use effectively for the one man band unless you are technically minded but it's top notch for those with resources to dedicate. The plus side of learning Maya is having a skillset that is more marketable. I know Lightwave experts who have a hard time finding work in that regard.

I would also recommend Modo. I think they are growing very rapidly and I'm sure that it will be a full featured 3D package in time that will have all the bells and whistles.

[Priyesh P.]

It is not true that xsi is a closed system and inaffordable. Several new Plugins and new support for external renderers were announced at siggraph. The new packaging scheme of "xsi essentials" brings cloth and hair sim for 3000 $. And they were highend, not those crappy ones of Maya. BTW, the only innovation of Autodesk in the past few years was the version number. The latest features of Max and Maya? Their Versioning of Max 2008 and Maya 2008. Wow...

[laguun]

any good animator can produce -outstanding- results with any of the mayor packages , and it doesnt have to be an actual version.

max, xsi, maya, houdini etc all have strong and weak sides. each one is inferior to one of the others in many relevant aspects. i happen to prefer 3ds max, but use alias and si as well. However, after more than 10 years animating, i rarely animate in the last 5 years or so.

the most important things to consider when buying 3D animation software:
its the indian, who makes the difference, not the arrow.
A stradivari doesn´t make the musician.

[Priyesh P.]

any good animator can produce -outstanding- results with any of the mayor packages , and it doesnt have to be an actual version.

the most important things to consider when buying 3D animation software:
its the indian, who makes the difference, not the arrow.
A stradivari doesn´t make the musician.

Jan, that's right, but here's is a little difference. Things like cameras, instruments, tools etc. are so standarized you can immediately start working. But I see huge inconsistencies in the area of 3D. Maya is the most bulky and unintuitive package I've ever seen. It's gui is so ugly that it is an insult for artists to work with, not speaking of the $ yo've to shell out for it. With Autodesk, right now you're likely going to step into a dead end. The only innovations at them were new version numbers.

XSI, moreover, gives you lowest price of entry with 500 bucks.

But given it's smooth workflow and tremendous speed, the coming superstar could be theoretically Modo. Unfortunately they're lightyears from having a full package and, given the upcoming "moondust" system of XSI, I see hard times for a little startup like Luxology to keep track with the others. They've reached version 3 but still no full, bone animation system.

[laguun]

Jan, that's right, but here's is a little difference. Things like cameras, instruments, tools etc. are so standarized you can immediately start working. But I see huge inconsistencies in the area of 3D.

true.
however, once one mastered its third, fourth, fifth... package, it gets easier to swap the application.



Maya is the most bulky and unintuitive package I've ever seen. It's gui is so ugly that it is an insult for artists to work with, not speaking of the $ yo've to shell out for it.

100.000s of artists disagree and say the same thing about softimage xsi.
i disagree with both views.

especially compared to the 3d packages i started with (in the late 80ties), maya, max and xsi are -all- awesome.
And with the old, complicated packages outstanding results have been produced.

We meet people with strong preferences for any of the packages. However, any of the packages is fantastic.




With Autodesk, right now you're likely going to step into a dead end. The only innovations at them were new version numbers.

I disagree. Autodesk is by far the market leader.

There have been many powerful upgrades of their softwares, year by year. Their userbase is huge - and happy for most of them.



XSI, moreover, gives you lowest price of entry with 500 bucks.

excellent price!
I never looked more precisely at the 500 euro version - is it very crippled or pretty powerful?



But given it's smooth workflow and tremendous speed, the coming superstar could be theoretically Modo. Unfortunately they're lightyears from having a full package and, given the upcoming "moondust" system of XSI, I see hard times for a little startup like Luxology to keep track with the others. They've reached version 3 but still no full, bone animation system.
max, maya, houdini and xsi have a good >90% share of the pro market - and i dont see that changing within this decade.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

We meet people with strong preferences for any of the packages. However, any of the packages is fantastic.

Yes. If any of them were really that bad, people would quit using them. Especially with 3DS Max and now Maya being under Autodesk control and their licensing scheme that disallows resale.


I disagree. Autodesk is by far the market leader.

Well, sure they are... Now that they have two of the leading software packages in-house. I also think it safe to assume that the two softwares will converge at some point. Or they will become vastly different over the next few years to serve different market segments.


excellent price!
I never looked more precisely at the 500 euro version - is it very crippled or pretty powerful?

Yes it is a great price. XSI Foundation at $500 is too limited for my needs, but all the primary software system is there and it's a great place for beginners to start and a great package for those who don't need all the fluff like cloth, fluids, hair, etc..


max, maya, houdini and xsi have a good >90% share of the pro market - and i dont see that changing within this decade.

Don't forget Lightwave... It has a larger share of the market than Houdini, so does Cinema4D. There's several others out there too like Mirai and Shade. Shade is the #1 selling 3D software in Japan and a huge seller in China. Lightwave is also huge in Japan and the Asian markets.

[Priyesh P.]

The popularity of Maya is based around it's time of intruduction (1998) where it's featureset and workflow were quite astounding. Nearly everything else sucked in contrast. And everyone who wants to get a job in 3D needs to learn Maya. I'm currently in the situation that I'm hired to time and animate cameras for a graphics package - and their main (or only) package is Maya. Fortunately I only need to learn the cameras and motion graph editor. The company's owners (directors of nike & adidas campaigns) told me directly that they hate it, but unfortunately it became the defacto standard.

OK, now I'll conclude it this way: If you want a package for yourself, take XSI, but to get into the industry - please become a pro in Maya or/and Max.

[Mark L. Pederson]

OK, now I'll conclude it this way: If you want a package for yourself, take XSI, but to get into the industry - please become a pro in Maya or/and Max.

Actually, IMHO if you master one of the newer, or "higher-end" applications, you are most likely worth more on the marketplace. It's CHEAPER for me to hire a MAYA artist than someone with bad ass chops on HOUDINI, NATURAL MOTION's ENDORPHIN, MASSIVE, REAL FLOW - which ... by the way ... if you ROCK on any of these - email me your info off-line ... always looking for ROCKSTAR gun-for-hires ...

I would skip the MILLIONS OF HOURS it takes to learn Maya - FYI Cinema 4D is SUPER EASY to learn - MODO for modeling for sure ...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I know Atmosphere and Zoic are always on the lookout for great Lightwave artists because there are so few.

[Priyesh P.]

I know Atmosphere and Zoic are always on the lookout for great Lightwave artists because there are so few.

yeah, since it takes so much time to master the workarounds, pitfalls and plugins. lw is great for modelling and graphics but animating organic stuff takes nearly ten times the effort over let's say xsi, main issues resulting from the rigging system.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I dunno... LW's rigging and animation tools are pretty simple and not much different than anyone else. It used to be that way back in the old days, but since v6.5 (and really 7.0) it isn't bad at all. But I'll agree that some are still better and XSI is one of them.

I didn't realize that there was high demand for ace users of REAL FLOW and Massive. Massive isn't that hard to use -- it's tedious to get good looking crowds and arrangements that look natural though. I haven't used REAL FLOW in about 2 years, but I used to be pretty good with it. I don't currently own my own license though... I'll be checking it out again shortly as I'm about to bid a project that will use it.

[Joe Carney]

One of the reasons Maya is popular is they have a PLE version. You can spend time learning the basics without spending a dime. 30 day trials are more for pros it seems, not beginners.

I ended up going witt LightWave based on several months research.

The reason I'm leaning toward Fusion over Nuke...PLE version I can take my time, learn, screwup, no time pressure.

Same goes for Vue.

The new pricing for XSI is not a price cut, they simply added the cost of Shave and Haircut to the 1995.00 Essentials price. Have to admit that's a great combo for high end character animation.

I purchased LightWave via the compaion software priceing. If you have AE, Premiere PRo, Photoshop...legal registered versions, you can get the full LW 9.2 with printed docs for 595.00, pdf docs for 495. That basically will pay for getting FPrime and keep it at or under 1K. The sidegrade price isn't supposed to include the 400.00 free training stuff. So add 50.00 USD for the "Essential Lightwave v9 book" if you're a newbie.

[Joe Carney]

yeah, since it takes so much time to master the workarounds, pitfalls and plugins. lw is great for modelling and graphics but animating organic stuff takes nearly ten times the effort over let's say xsi, main issues resulting from the rigging system.

LW has a long history with various broadcast scifi productions. These people know LW inside and out.
As a hard body modeler (with dynamics included) it excels. Space ships, architecture, explosions, ray beams...just about anything but character animation are what those guys are looking for. They rarely have the budget or time to add in full blown character animation, regardless of software.

[Jim Hoffman]

The PLE versions offer a great way to experience these programs without the major time crunch. I can already see that this seems more like a combo platter scenario... IE modeling in MODO with some help from zbrush/mudbox and then somewhere else for animation.. maybe Vue Infinite for some outdoor landscape work...

Does anyone want to go into some detail about animation and what you like/don't about some of the packages... maybe a better way to say it is strengths and weaknesses.

Also- can anyone recommend any publications be it book/magazine/online that breaks down SFX work / compositing involving CG ... like a real nuts and bolts with real world examples... small shop possibilities... anything that can shed light on this side of the biz.

Thanks - you all are very helpful and I appreciate it.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

You know Nuke has a PLE edition as well right?

In my mind at this point... despite all of the debates raging in the 3D world (because everybody is practically the same with a different interface)... the live action compositing race is over. Nuke hands down no question in my mind is the superior architecture.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'll have to look into Nuke. I keep meaning too, but never get around to playing with it.

I just keep limping along with Shake, it serves my needs (for now), but I know I'll have to give it up at some point and I don't know if/when Apple releases its successor if that will be the answer. Before Shake, I used DFX+ and was going to buy into Fusion, but then I switched to editing with FCP and tried Shake, and liked it.

[Priyesh P.]

I don't know if/when Apple releases its successor if that will be the answer.

Hi Jeff. I heard some bad things about this. Maybe only rumors, but the last things I've heard was, that the crew doesn't exist anymore.

[Joe Carney]

You know Nuke has a PLE edition as well right?

In my mind at this point... despite all of the debates raging in the 3D world (because everybody is practically the same with a different interface)... the live action compositing race is over. Nuke hands down no question in my mind is the superior architecture.

No, they have a 30 day trial version. I know because I requested and downloaded it. The license key they sent me was for 30 days. I managed to get about 2 hours on it, given my schedule.

There is no time limit on Fusion. Both have lots of training material to download.

if you know of a Nuke PLE version with no time limits based on the current release, please post the info. I'm sure others would like to know that.

Joe C.

[Joe Carney]

The PLE versions offer a great way to experience these programs without the major time crunch. I can already see that this seems more like a combo platter scenario... IE modeling in MODO with some help from zbrush/mudbox and then somewhere else for animation.. maybe Vue Infinite for some outdoor landscape work...

Does anyone want to go into some detail about animation and what you like/don't about some of the packages... maybe a better way to say it is strengths and weaknesses.

Also- can anyone recommend any publications be it book/magazine/online that breaks down SFX work / compositing involving CG ... like a real nuts and bolts with real world examples... small shop possibilities... anything that can shed light on this side of the biz.

Thanks - you all are very helpful and I appreciate it.


I recommend cgtalk.com, lots of resources, links, publications and people who can answer you questions. If you are a Babylon 5 Fan, they have a series of articles covering the new direct to DVD B5 feature and how they used fan designed models from around the internet when it turned out Fox lost the 3D assets from the original series.

Another good site is vfxtalk.com which focuses mainly on the Post VFX market (AE, Fusion, Shake, Nuke ...).

There is also fxphd.com an online training school, they also have a companion site fxguide.com with weekly podcast about the vfx industry.

You are right, there is no one tool that can do it all, not even close.

[Jim Hoffman]

Hi Jeff. I heard some bad things about this. Maybe only rumors, but the last things I've heard was, that the crew doesn't exist anymore.

What's the deal - was Shake no good or just too hard to develop?? Not a big enough market place? are they incorporating it into FC Studio???

[Mark L. Pederson]

Motion 4 - Nab 2008

[Paul Hazlett]

Motion 4 - Nab 2008

BINGO.

I think shake is going to be parted out as to what benefits where. some
cool tools inside FCP most for motion 4

[Gavin Greenwalt]

No, they have a 30 day trial version. I know because I requested and downloaded it. The license key they sent me was for 30 days. I managed to get about 2 hours on it, given my schedule.

There is no time limit on Fusion. Both have lots of training material to download.

if you know of a Nuke PLE version with no time limits based on the current release, please post the info. I'm sure others would like to know that.

Joe C.

Ahhh but see that's where you went about it all wrong. The Foundry only gives a 30 day trial for 4.7.X But there is a 4.6.X Digital Domain PLE that was released mere weeks before the Foundry deal was announced. However if you didn't aquire it at the time I suppose it's probably pretty deep in the 'legal-gray' area.

[Joe Carney]

Ahhh but see that's where you went about it all wrong. The Foundry only gives a 30 day trial for 4.7.X But there is a 4.6.X Digital Domain PLE that was released mere weeks before the Foundry deal was announced. However if you didn't aquire it at the time I suppose it's probably pretty deep in the 'legal-gray' area.

Well...sh#t. lol.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

There's always a catch. Heh.

[Priyesh P.]

What's the deal - was Shake no good or just too hard to develop?? Not a big enough market place? are they incorporating it into FC Studio???

Hi Hoffman, I think the others were right. Maybe they're trying to turn motion into a full compositing app. That's what I heard, too.

I really, really hope there would be some vendor (I know it's only a dream) who would make an app with the capabilities of flame for the price of nuke. And please don't argument that standard hardware isn't fast enough. At the times of flame V3 there were offline boxes running on indigo2.
Compared to current standards that's not more than a calculator...

[Jim Hoffman]

Seems like a logical next step for Apple - we've already seen hints of Shake in the newer version of motion.

What are the advantages of Nuke?

[Curran Giddens]

What are the advantages of Nuke?

The main reason I am looking at Nuke is because it is "the industry's broadest support for openEXR." It has excellent 3D support as well.

Nuke's $3,500 price ($250 render node) is cheaper then similar solutions. Fusion 5 currently retails for $4,500+.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

What are the advantages of Nuke?

Speed, Interface, Features and the OpenEXR multi-channel workflow.



Nuke's $3,500 price ($250 render node) is cheaper then similar solutions. Fusion 5 currently retails for $4,500+.

Yes but Nuke has a $1000 a year maintance fee. Support through Fusion is free.

[Priyesh P.]

Speed, Interface, Features and the OpenEXR multi-channel workflow.



Yes but Nuke has a $1000 a year maintance fee. Support through Fusion is free.

http://www.heise.de/bilder/73220/0/0

JUST KIDDING! But your avatar looked to cute, I couldn't keep myself from doing it. :-)

[Joe Carney]

I went over to the SoftImage site (xsi) and they are running a special on essentials for 1995.00 with a free upgrade to 6.5 (including haircut and fur and cloth) if purchased before Sep 6. Now that is a great deal. After that it's 2995 as kalone reported.

Even better is they dropped the price on advanced to 4995.

Just FYI.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The XSI essentials pricing is a steal right now. It's definitely the time to buy into XSI if you've been on the fence. The price is $2K off of Advanced too, if you need all of that stuff. IMO, Behavior is worth having if you'll be doing any kind of visuals with crowds or large numbers of moving objects. Advanced has also been boosted to 12 CPUs plus an additional 24 satellite nodes for MentalRay, so if you run a render farm, it's the way to go. The one other cost with XSI is to plan the $799/year for Essentials and $1339/year for Advanced for support. But that keeps you current on everything. I'm figuring that XSI will replace Maya as the de-facto standard in most areas within the next year.

SoftImage still has their same self-centric, encapsulated business model. But they did open up the XSI render API to third party developers, so we will start seeing additional render engines and render plug-ins.

[Jim Hoffman]

Do you need scripting experience with XSI like you do with Maya?

[Priyesh P.]

I've just read the feedback on Autodesk's Max 2008 and Maya 2008. To keep things short: Big dissapointments on both sides. OK, XSI 6.5 didn't deliver anything new either, but there (at Softimage) are things on the horizon that look very very promising. I'll just mention Moondust, CAT and Vray support. Very nice and highly interesting. But let's wait until things turn reality...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

XSI doesn't rely on scripting the same way Maya does, or at least not for most common tasks. But you'll never get full use out of any 3D app without writing a script every now and then.

[Priyesh P.]

XSI doesn't rely on scripting the same way Maya does, or at least not for most common tasks. But you'll never get full use out of any 3D app without writing a script every now and then.

Yeah, that's right. I'm currently (to some extent) forced to learn Maya and it was nice to see how things can be customized through scripts.

[Joe Carney]

Do you need scripting experience with XSI like you do with Maya?

One of the reasons I was interested in XSI in the first place is it's support for commonly used Windows based programming languages like C# and JScript.
Since I have experience in C# it would of been a matter of learning the ins and outs of the XSI object namespace. Jscript has become very powerful too. It's also the scripting language used in Sony Vegas.

I would still be just a little bit wary. There seemed to be a lot of stability issues in early 6.x releases. You can get good answers at cgtalk and at
http://www.xsibase.com The folks at xsibase were polite and willing to answer my newbie questions.

[Albert Cheng]

As far as scripting languages go, you should go with Python. It's a great language that can be used for most any tasks, whether embedded in an app or not, easy to learn, and is becoming more and more adopted by 3D and compositing apps. Maya, Modo, Fusion, etc...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I've just read the feedback on Autodesk's Max 2008 and Maya 2008. To keep things short: Big dissapointments on both sides. OK, XSI 6.5 didn't deliver anything new either, but there (at Softimage) are things on the horizon that look very very promising. I'll just mention Moondust, CAT and Vray support. Very nice and highly interesting. But let's wait until things turn reality...

I hear a lot of bitch-moaning about the latest max 2008 release but that's imo only because the marketing team completely dropped the ball.

When XSI released GATOR, Gigapoly etc etc etc. Everything was given fancy marketing terms and hyped up and it was viewed as one of the biggest improvements to the XSI product line to date.

Max included almost feature for feature every major XSI 6 release feature but just put it under a small bullet point like "Transfer UVW coordinates between multi-poly meshes. Aka Gator.

The speed improvements alone making Max supposedly the best performing viewport on the market is an enormous feature as does speed and stability with large scenes.

I'm working on a scene right now where the max file is >150MB has more than 14,000 objects, 250 .5k textures and has about 10,000,000 polygons. I can't work like I normally do on a scene even with layer management. If the viewports were 10 times or more snappy my productivity will scale accordingly if not more because I won't be tempted to get distracted whlie waiting.

Plus with a new system so that materials, lights and shadows are rendered in the viewport dynamically with directX proxies I'll need to render less something Lightwave users are sort of familiar with in respect to FPrime.

Max2008 is a huge release and there are a ton of other features which I didn't even mention that I'm super excited about (New Maxscript editor for one whee!)

[Priyesh P.]

Oh, sorry, a "little" detail I missed about max.
We guys over here in Europe were charged a "little" extra on top by the nice people of Autodesk.
The package costs 5057 Euro, that's 6816 $.
I've heard that it runs for roughly 3500 $ in the states.
That's a nice bonus...