Characters can be created and rigged for animation with the greatest of ease with XSI’s character set up tools. Image courtesy of Softimage Co. and Avid Technology Inc.

But the power of XSI is truly unleashed in its range of animation features. The program boasts new character set up and rigging tools with over 20 set up options, making the often-tedious task of rigging a character for animation almost child’s play. Set-ups suitable for use in film or games can be completed in minutes for all types of characters, with a high degree of customisation.

Another time saving feature of XSI is the non-linear Animation Mixer, which was justifiably hyped when it was introduced in the first version of XSI. The Mixer can be used to blend together “clips” of animation quickly and seamlessly. This is particularly useful for character animation; artists can build up a library of movements that can be used again and again with different characters.

Big Boys Toys
Particle simulation tools tend to separate the men from the boys in animation packages…and in XSI 3.0 Softimage have completely redesigned their particle system from the ground up. It’s a powerful tool that lets artists create everything from fluids and explosions, to crowd simulation with the most intricate control over every aspect of movement, down to the individual particle. The fully integrated hair and fur dynamics system is equally impressive. Forces such as drag, wind and gravity can be applied with ease; hairstyles can be sculpted with tools like comb, clump, cut and lock, and those styles can be re-used on different characters even if their proportions aren’t identical.

Fast interactive rendering makes for integrated high-quality renders of even complex fur dynamics. Image courtesy of Softimage Co. and Avid Technology Inc. Bear courtesy of Project Studio, France.

The hair and fur dynamics tools take full advantage of XSI’s interactive rendering to maximise their potential. The award-winning mental ray 3.1 technology is completely integrated into XSI, providing users with high-end photo-realistic special effects with more natural lighting, without ridiculously long waits. In fact, everything about XSI is faster, more streamlined, more memory efficient. It’s unusual for a software company to spend just as much time refining a program’s fundamental features as developing new ones.

The Freedom To Create
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP is very much a creative tool for creative people. It’s intuitive and fast enough to let artists create anything they can image with minimum fuss, and powerful and complex enough to allow for the meticulous level of control an artist demands. The list of features goes on and on (Toon shaders, Direct X support, integrated compositing, cloth simulation, lightweight model instancing, etc.), creating a toolset that will bring a smile to the faces of games developers, visual effects artists, animators and post-production workers alike. EXP is the perfect platform for students, 3D hobbyists and enthusiasts, and animation professionals to get to grips with a piece of software that is unquestionably in the top of its class. It opens up new doors to artists who previously had no access to a high-end animation system, allowing them to take their work, and their skills to a new level. There has never been a better time to be a 3D artist!

Paul Younghusband has been writing about all things visual effects and animation related for around five years, having served as editor of Visual Magic Magazine. He recently dyed his hair bright red for Comic Relief and now believes this could be an excellent plot for his animated short film...which has been in development for around 36 months....