brucegregory Posted August 12, 2004 Share Posted August 12, 2004 A 3D thermonuclear war has just been set in motion, the first strike rendered by SoftImage. With pricing like that, a character feature set like XSI and an assembly of large production companies that use it for feature animation work, how many people, now, are likely to say "no!"? I realize that Houdini is a better written, more streamlined, resource-frugal, programmer friendly, more powerful piece of work than XSI, but these are not the only factors influencing aspiring 3D animators in their choice of platform. Having stated all of this, I still lean toward the Houdini offering, but would like more information about the advanced and new character toolset that I have only heard about through the rumormill. Can anyone enumerate the changes in the character toolset? What advantages have these new tools over those offered by the competition? Will all of these tools be available in the "Escape" package? And, finally, when does SideFX plan to release them for use in the Apprentice Program? Greg Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mario Marengo Posted August 12, 2004 Share Posted August 12, 2004 Hi Greg, Questions such as yours, are likely best directed at the company itself. Top of my head, I'd suggest e-mailing sales[AT]sidefx.com. Failing that, I'd get a copy of Apprentice 7.0 and look at the What's New section in regards to character tools. But again; it's probably best to contact SESI for an "enumeration" of character features, as you put it -- I'm guessing they'd have PR packages with spec sheets and such. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thekenny Posted August 12, 2004 Share Posted August 12, 2004 the cheap brand of XSI doesn't come with all the right bells and whistles. you still don't get cloth, hair or soft body tools. Price point on a single cut really shouldn't be that much of a motivator. if you are doing a large scale pipeline, you are dealing with volume. In a capitalist society you should never have to pay full price for something, except support:). What you are seeing with the lowering of the base package is a reality of the above situation. Now is the vendor is feeling the need to expand the user base of the package in the hope to get the support $$. Tease the user a bit so they will have to move up to the "essential" package and do some work. Sure it cuts back on the overall cost for software, but really that's never where they have made the money.IMHO. if you are dealing with a large production you need tools to scale and match the volume of characters, shots and footage you need to push through in order to feed other departments. I believe you will always be able to rig and set up a character faster in another package, but you will also hit a dead end with that rig and your animators will be waiting for other reasons. What you get with Houdini is very different. The tools are not what they used to be. A clever pipeline will be able to adapt and change with Houdini more effectively. The capture layer painting should be better than anything else on the market. I'm sure you will be seeing things from SESI once they recover from SIGGRAPH and the dancers. -k Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted August 14, 2004 Share Posted August 14, 2004 Can you keyframe in layers yet in XSI? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2004 Share Posted August 16, 2004 We'll take that as a No. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted August 16, 2004 Share Posted August 16, 2004 Will all of these tools be available in the "Escape" package? And, finally, when does SideFX plan to release them for use in the Apprentice Program? Escape is all the character tools (plus more stuff)...so all these new features will be there...as for when they will be available to Apprentice users...the 7 builds are still in Beta, and it's only just after SIGGRAPH, so the SESI folks have to sober up and get back to work > but I would imagine they will be available soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 the cheap brand of XSI doesn't come with all the right bells and whistles. you still don't get cloth, hair or soft body tools. Apparently Cloth is in the deal, but no mention of RBD. One wonders how long they could sustain selling 2 mental-ray licenses for such a price since mental images are well known for their hard line on things like pricing. Softimage must be taking quite a loss here - definately buying up some market share. Interesting times again. 2 CPU mental ray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thekenny Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 I stand corrected. Thank you sir! but really whatever you call it, it ain't the same unless it is Houdini:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mcronin Posted August 17, 2004 Share Posted August 17, 2004 Apparently Cloth is in the deal, but no mention of RBD. One wonders how long they could sustain selling 2 mental-ray licenses for such a price since mental images are well known for their hard line on things like pricing. Softimage must be taking quite a loss here - definately buying up some market share. 13275[/snapback] I think things changed over the last year since Maya and Max now both ship with MR and because HyperThreading is prevalent. Lots of customers are using dual procs or at least HT so it looks like two licenses is the norm now for everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gravatar Posted August 22, 2004 Share Posted August 22, 2004 I think things changed over the last year since Maya and Max now both ship with MR and because HyperThreading is prevalent. Lots of customers are using dual procs or at least HT so it looks like two licenses is the norm now for everyone. 13281[/snapback] WHy does HT need that second license? Grav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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