XSI 7...

[curveU]

I believe many people already got the news, http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/.

I never used XSI before, so Just want to know what you guys think about this new version. Some features looks good, tho.

[Marc]

Take 1 XSI, mix in a little magical Houdini fairy dust, add a bucket load of cgtalk fan-wank and some made up marketing from Softimage and you get.... er... well a new version of XSI with particles and a fanboys wet dream, I guess.

[jason_slab]

hey hi

we've been on the beta list for a few months, now i havn't had loads of time to play with it, but i can tell you that it's a great step for XSI.

The design and workflow is really cool and it's pretty easy to pick up, specially if your used to node based workflows:).

It's also fast and quite interactive.

soo the question of questions...

is it better than Houdini? NO

is it easier than Houdini? i'd say YES

it's going to interesting to follow more mature versions of ICE, well XSI in general

jason

[cellchuk]

Take 1 XSI, mix in a little magical Houdini fairy dust, add a bucket load of cgtalk fan-wank and some made up marketing from Softimage and you get.... er... well a new version of XSI with particles and a fanboys wet dream, I guess.

hehe, true

[digitallysane]

We do use XSI here. From what I see on their site, the new version is more or less a carbon copy of VOPs, which I use in Houdini for years. If the best thing their R & D can do is plain copy some other software, I'll be seriously considering renouncing at XSI altogether.

My appreciation of Maya suddenly grew significantly. At least those guys are innovating, more or less (nCloth for example).

That being said, it is indeed a significant step for XSI.

Dragos

[jason_slab]

yes they might of copied some stuff, look at Thinking Particles, u'll see even more of a resemblance in there GUI. what they have done is thought about the "artist" workflow, and i personally think they are doing a good job.

from what i can tell/see, if your a Houdini artist your not going to jump over to XSI, but it opens up a interesting area for XSI users, who now might find Houdini a little easier to follow.

Maya? no, i think (besides nCloth) Maya is pretty much a dead duck, again personally i see myself far better off having XSI/Houdini as part of my arsenal..

js

[Leon Amion]

I might be wrong here but I think viewport performance might be one of the issues that could attract some Houdini

[Netvudu]

...and if ICE reaches Houdini

[symek]

I might be wrong here but I think viewport performance might be one of the issues that could attract some Houdini

[malexander]

POPs was designed when dual-processor systems were still very expensive ('98-'99), so it doesn't take advantage of more modern hardware capabilities (multi-core, GPUs). Expressions, which drive the guts most of the POPs, also make it tricky to port to these extra processing units. Still, it can be done with some work.

XSI did have an advantage in designing this stuff when the hardware was around. It's much easier to build something from the ground up WRT threading or GPU processing than it is to adapt existing code to use it.

[Jason]

POPs was designed when dual-processor systems were still very expensive ('98-'99), so it doesn't take advantage of more modern hardware capabilities (multi-core, GPUs). Expressions, which drive the guts most of the POPs, also make it tricky to port to these extra processing units. Still, it can be done with some work.

XSI did have an advantage in designing this stuff when the hardware was around. It's much easier to build something from the ground up WRT threading or GPU processing than it is to adapt existing code to use it.

We are all hoping that POPs gets a re-rub some day; perhaps as a Particle DOP? The trick would be to make sure you can do all you used to be able to do in POPs, but in DOPs. The new VOP Force and such make it start to be a feasible idea.

[sanostol]

From my experience ICE is a variation of VOP /VOP. It is not really compareable to houdini. Yes, it is faster but Houdini's limits are harder to achieve.

I found a very cool sentence at the softimage xsi 7 website, and I think the marketing guy was either drunken or the one and only honest marketing guy on earth. he said:

Point cache. Use what XSI is good for, and export point cache files to other applications.

think about it, it made my day at least

That is honest. And You can put it on every software developer site. The coolest thing is that with fbx and mdd for example You can easily rig and animate in xsi and export either the pointchache, the enveloped mesh or just the animation to houdini and go on working. the fbx implementatin in houdini is wonderfull, and the xsi version is very well done, too. so why bother about limitations, team them up

We are all hoping that POPs gets a re-rub some day; perhaps as a Particle DOP? The trick would be to make sure you can do all you used to be able to do in POPs, but in DOPs. The new VOP Force and such make it start to be a feasible idea.

Edited July 8, 2008 by sanostol

[kleer001]

the nodes look like they have a lot of yummy syntatic sugar, lot of extra little do-dads that make life easier.

[RonensArt]

From my experience ICE is a variation of VOP /VOP. It is not really compareable to houdini. Yes, it is faster but Houdini's limits are harder to achieve.

I found a very cool sentence at the softimage xsi 7 website, and I think the marketing guy was either drunken or the one and only honest marketing guy on earth. he said:

think about it, it made my day at least

That is honest. And You can put it on every software developer site. The coolest thing is that with fbx and mdd for example You can easily rig and animate in xsi and export either the pointchache, the enveloped mesh or just the animation to houdini and go on working. the fbx implementatin in houdini is wonderfull, and the xsi version is very well done, too. so why bother about limitations, team them up

so true!

as it seems now its only get easier to Transfer anything from each package to Houdini,

they are doing a good job for all of those that didn't want to accept Houdini's logic thinking...

but is it a true Tool development kit or another presets fancy button one?

[jason_slab]

but is it a true Tool development kit or another presets fancy button one?

yes u can develop tools, I've been playing around with some of the stuff, like the Bi-directional mesh deformer Compound that was apparently build from a siggraph paper.

what's nice about it, is the Compounds are like OTL's you can just dive right in there and look how is was built.

and inside the calculate bulge tree(i made it small because i'm not to sure if i'm allowed to show this much info)

jason

[symek]

yes u can develop tools, I've been playing around with some of the stuff, like the Bi-directional mesh deformer Compound that was apparently build from a siggraph paper.

what's nice about it, is the Compounds are like OTL's you can just dive right in there and look how is was built.

and inside the calculate bulge tree(i made it small because i'm not to sure if i'm allowed to show this much info)

jason

yes, the good point about this "blood transfusion" (sic!) is that we would be able to use all these goodies that huge XSI community will probably produce for coming with XSI7.0 community web service similar to Exchange.

This mesh deformer is a first target

Edited July 10, 2008 by SYmek

[old school]

Still early days but Avid-XSI-ICE looks to me like programming with nodes. An excellent tool to augment a fully-functional data flow network like, say SOPs or a fully functioning stack.

Houdini makes it pretty simple: SOPs process geometry. You either use what is in Houdini (can do so much out-of-box) or augment that in several different ways: VEX/VOPs, Python, Digital Assets, etc. By providing so many default SOPs, hip files remain valid years in to the future and re-usability is guaranteed. You just don't go and rename the Point SOP.

ICE looks to me to be just one part of the puzzle.

Networks are nice but being able to write with code is also necessary IMHO. VOPs are great for bashing ideas out or doing things that don't require too much logic or when you encapsulate big things (with codes or networks) to simplify complex work flows. Being able to write stuff out in shader code (using function templates, etc.) and make my own nodes whether it be a VOP or an actual operator is invaluable to keeping my sanity. And I don't need to know c++ and deal with compile issues on different platforms for basic stuff. Houdini comes with production proven work flows working in very large projects with lots of people sharing stuff. Most of it out-of-the-box.

Contrary to what some think, VEX is multi-threaded.

Avid-ICE is not data flow as you would find in SOPs, POPs (well sort of), CHOPS, COPs or in a tradional data stack. It is programming from the examples seen so far. Visual programming which is nothing new to many of us. Then there are users doing great stuff without knowing how to program with VEX/VOPs or Avid-XSI.

These Avid-ICE networks look like you can build Geometry nodes that you use in the stack (PRISMS?). I know Avid-XSI has a stack but from what I gather it gets as much use as Maya's stack/history right now. Perhaps this will change?

There is a whole host of features that you do find in Houdini's SOPs that you don't need to write or work with in a programming environment to access:

-Logic operators

-object merge

-attribute transfer

-multiple time lines and the time* SOPs, foreach

-stamping

-digital assets that encompass any valid Houdini operator and carry any data you want. An entire scene if you wish.

-etc... We all have our favourites

Then there is the data sharing and passing between the different parts of Houdini.

Artists do get a Stack (given time and purpose). Whether they get programming (visual networks or code) is a different question. This will certainly empower a few individuals in shops that gravitate to the more technical side of things but for day-to-day procedural work flows, not much IMHO.

To me this is Avid-XSI clearly giving what their users desire: Keep the Artists working efficiently (BAU) but give the TD's a way to create powerful procedural effects in an accessible fashion. The great divide between the two is where SOPs (and so much more in Houdini) live. Everything else is just rhetoric right now (which is quite a lot of fun btw).

-jeff

Edited July 10, 2008 by old school

[digitallysane]

They say ICE is a framework which will enable further developments in various areas of the package in the future. So the VOPs functionality available now is just the beginning. Which would be interested to watch, as for now there's nothing new in it, from a Houdini user perspective.

Dragos

[TheUsualAlex]

I liked their netbox. As Symek said tho, would be nice to take their stuff as well and perhaps some of us out of spare time will take the good and interesting concept from their ICE and port it over to our community here (credit to where credit due, of course).

By the way, thanks for the insight as usual, Jeff.

[diula]

Does anyone know if VEX is multi-threaded (all threads sharing the same memory) nowadays - or it is executed in the old multi-processor fashion (the menu on some VEX ops is labeled "Use as many processors", which implies the latter method)? If it is multi-threaded, are there any limitations to it, e.g. some functions support only a single thread, etc. It would be very useful to know the details on this, as the docs do not mention anything in particular...