To try to show you how easy it is to pick up, I just did this in 30 mins... Nowt fancy but...

Just showing some work doesn't sell me on the product. How about doing a vid that shows how the UI, works and show the work flow of the basic tools.

yea. if u scroll at the bottom of the link you'll see videos of the main tools in xsi.
or just get the free version.
both maya and xsi are great. but i think autodesk has more specific markets and audiences its targeting; and likewise softimage

Vlad,

thanks for the link and the insight to what seems to be a reasonable Maya alternative. I'm definately going to look further into it as having just one 3d app under my belt could limit my options.

On another note, I got a reply from autodesk last night after voicing my concerns about what options were available to me if my university were to upgrade to 8.5.

A couple of quotes from the mail I recieved....

"There was no purchase protection offered for the 8.5 release, and typically such purchase protection are on licenses purchased within a 30 day period prior to first customer shipment of the new release."

There are going to be some upset customers, especially since 8.5 seemed to come from nowhere so they weren't given the option to wait a few weeks to upgrade or purchase for the first time.

And....

"The understanding that we have, based on what information is available to us, is that you can move files back and forth between versions. Feature sets, or activity requiring feature sets, that are available only in the higher version would not work on the older version."

If anyone has access to Maya 8 and 8.5 could you please try opening a scene file from the 8.5 in 8. The answer I was given seems a little vague as an 8.5 scene file could be created with the new feature sets or actions that require them embedded within.

I still don't know whether my university is going to be upgrading so perhaps I don't have anything to worry about but I can't help feeling a little on edge that I may have spent quite a lump of my annual budget on something that I will only be able to use at university for the first half of this year.

Cheers,

Mat.

Thats a bit of a vague statement, do you think they tried???


Jay

Your bang on about upgrading for upgradings sake, especially when your starting out and learning the software. The only time I could see this not being true would be in Mat's case where the uni has upgraded and you might be forced to to stop any problems that you might have between the two.


I might make the jump but not too sure as of yet, gonna wait to see if theres any bugs (al a the extrude tool porblem in V8) saying that I might not as i'm happy with 6.0!

I'm not too sure Steve,

that's why I asked if someone could try it our for me!

I agree on the upgrading for upgradings sake point, I would definately still be using 7 if I had the choice.

Cheers,

Mat.

happymat27: I cant believe Autodesk did not offer a protection License in with Maya 8.5, and the fact that you have to purchase one seperately 30 days prior to the fist commercial shipment of that new version. How is a customer to know about this before he decides to buy, especially when new versions mysteriously come out of nowhere. It really sounds like Autode$k is just in it for the money.

I think I will look more seriously into getting XSI.

gster

I was just 'banging' on in general, as a whole so to speak, not pointing fingers, people like Mat are almost forced to upgrade if you catch my drift, which is unfair to an extent on them.

Cheers
Jay

just read all this thread and its turning out to be quite interesting....

coming from the programming angle (for my sins I've been doing web programming for about 7 years) the switch to python is a big plus.
It means that the people already out there using python for web applications (google, plone etc), desktop applications and more can quite quickly get versed in programming in the maya environment. This could potentially lead to a big increase in custom tools/interfaces being written and made available to maya users. Writing it for one app (maya) means that it would be far easier to mod it for another app and make it more widely available. I'm guessing that sometime soon Max will drop MAXscript in favour of python too and if XSI already uses it then that is a big plus too - watch the domino effect run through the other 3D apps, unless one goes further with .NET style programming being added or maybe that'll come with Vista...
There are a lot of python tutorials out there on the web for people wanting to learn the basics so if you were really interested then even before upgrading you could get the basic understanding under your belt and then scripting in Maya wouldn't be as scary as it might currently be.

One of the main reasons I haven't touched MEL is that its yet another language to learn and iron out all the idiosyncracies/syntax with. I was setting up a Python based Content Management System called Plone before recently finishing and if maya had supported it I would have dived in headfirst and learned so that I could do things in both programs.
Just my tuppence ;)

Si

One other software that really takes my fancy is modo.

Has anyone got any experiance with it?

Steve

Not persona;;y but if you go here...

http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/blogger/

theres a few guys who do...good forum

Funny abou tthe upgrade..Autodesk did tha tto me when i got V7 last year....purchased it like... 4 days before v8 was annonced at siggraph hit the market. reseller todl me i would be able to upgrade, Autodesk wouldnt do crap for me...-shrugs-.. i like 7 good enough.. no biggie
G

Cheers Jay,

Just downloading the 30 day trial version now.

Before when I said you were "bang on" i meant you were "spot on", I was totaly agreeing with you, not saying you were banging on. If that makes sense?? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick???

Steve

LOL, I dunno mate, I havent a clue now to be honest, its past.

let me know how you get on with modo's demo, I may have another look on it, after your viewing, I was gonna download Max's demo and possibly XSI if theres one for that.

Cheers
Jay

I agree, this update doesnt really impress me much. Im not yet swavy haha, but there just doesnt seem to be much that perks my interest. I think the addition of python is cool, but im not a coder i cant stand it haha. I had to take a C++ class and that drove me up a wall. BUt i have recently tried XSI, i must say that i have fallen in love with it. Theres so many cool little features.

i dont think this update is to impressive :/ maybe they should name it 8.01 instead of 8.5.

Well, on the Maya front, I actually got them to agree to give me 8.5 in return for 8.0, but only because it was purchased the friday before 8.5 was announced and released. But, I still like 7 over 8, so I'm not too excited.

As far as Modo goes, I've tried it. It was nothing extensive, but it seems like a good program. But, it wasn't similar to Maya. I'm going to dl that XSI demo and check it out. Hopefully, I can get into it, and use it as a backup. Does anyone know if XSI files can be imported into Maya, and vice versa?

There is a plug in for Maya that will allow the import and export of dotXSI file formats (you may have to complie it yourself). Also I beleive that you can get the FBX plugin for XSI, check www.the-area.com to see it is still there.

I would go for the FBX route as I have used it before. dotXSI is a file format native to the XSI package.

http://www.softimage.com/products/xs...ure%20List.pdf

look on Page 4 it show a detailed outline of all you can exchange with maya and max. as of v6, almost everything is exchangeable through the mayaConverter

im not sure if this has been mentioned but hey

python scripting....... to me its just a way to help them phase out mel and maya
just my opinion though

it has come out too quick with not that much to offer same as v8

they should wait to build some more new and qualitive features, however new dynamics system interests me

im curious though does max do .5 versions ?

Python is a programming language that is almost becoming the norm in 3d apps, so I dont think its a way of getting rid of MEL and then maya. Also the Neuclus dynamics is new for maya 8.5 which Autodesk say is "Autodesk Neucleus" not maya specific, so if you were sinical you could say they are testing it on maya before bringing it out in Max, or on the toherhand that autodesk are pushing maya more than Max as it has this upgrade and Max has'nt.

Think Maya's got a bit of life yet.

yeah its true, Python is more core/API orientated...

_J

plus python's multi threaded...

man i cant believe an upgrade thread is turning into a "app-switching" thread.

i dont think MEL is going anywhere... since maya is basically a bunch of MEL [maya embeded language.] scripts on top of the API...
but im no expert, and i dont work for autodesk.

I know LOL

_J

Yeah your right Vlad.

Think that most upgrade threads since autodesk aquired alias will be the same.

Just got maya 8.5 and I've got to say that other than some menu changes (I was on Version 6 previously) theres not too much difference in the things that I mostly use, the Mental Ray render globals have had a rehaul, so thats going to take some getting used to.

The new ncloth seems to be pretty good with the little play that I've had with it, its almost as simple as creating your clothes as a poly mesh then making it a ncloth object, making your character a collision object and hitting play (There is more to it than that but thats it in a nutshell)

Looking forward to finding more things that have been added since V6

Sounds to me like Syflex TBH. XSI has it built in, maybe Autodesk did the same thing (or did a Microsoft and rippd it off enough to make there own) :p

Dunno man, never tried syflex.

Seems a good decent addition though! Much better than the original cloth IMHO.

To me maya 8.5's a good upgrade (from maya 6.0) dont think I will use all the new features though. And I think most of them were in Version 7

seems overall a good upgrade, im kinda sad that there is still not really a proper modelling upgrade being done though.. like subdivision that work good, and highlighting tool and all.. though NEX plugin makes up for a great deal it's a shame it's still needed to have a plugin to do that kinda stuff :bandit: