ICE brings many new shaders to XSI 7.

There are quite a few miscellaneous rendering features that have been added as well. There is a terrific new realtime shading API. The ability to edit multiple UV sets in the texture editor. Support for importons, which is an irradiance particle algorithm used to get a similar rendering solution to FG + GI but faster. In order to speed up renders there is a new option to display or not display the frames as they render. When the display is turned off, only the render progress bar is visible. There are quite a few "Binary Alchemy" shaders such as Volume, Cell, Fractal and a few other volume specific shaders. The Render Channel Shaders and the Share Shaders have been updated to include more features geared toward making them easier to use and access. The editing of local or global passes is now the same as all other shared properties in XSI, making the "Make Local to Current Pass" and "Copy This Pass to Global" buttons obsolete. A new function allowing you to override any of the global rendering options for a specific pass (just editing the options) has been added. There is so much more I'd like to add here but again, like the ICE tree, the rendering and materials upgrade for this release is just too massive to list in one single review.

Editing and creating scripts in XSI just got a lot easier.

Sometimes it's the small (or not so small) stuff that makes life easier. Quite a few useful tools and functions have been added to XSI 7. A new licensing system has been implemented. It is much easier to use and includes a "Panic Buttons" in the event that there is a problem. This button will allow Softimage to continue to function till the user(s) have time to contact support and resolve the issue. Interface speed has been increased dramatically. I've done some tests and scenes that previously ran at 4 or 5 frames per second are now running at 30 to 45 fps. Included with version 7 are eight hours of training created by Digital Tutors. This should really help users get a grip on the new ICE tree as well as some of the other new features. The text editor now has a customizable Scintilla-based editing feature that allows full text adjustment of color, font, size, syntax styles, auto-complete, folding, highlighting and much more.

There are quite a few new primitive models like, XSI Man Armored and Little Dude. There are dozens of small user interface enhancements. Sliders now dynamically "adjust" for ranges that were not coded into the property page. Zooming in views (any view, not just 3D views) can now be done using the scroll wheel on the mouse. Typing in a very, very small value such as "0.00001" is now accepted in XSI and not "rounded" to zero like they were in the past. There is a new display mode dedicated to particle work. Filtering via keyword has been added to so many new areas of XSI that it is just too much to list. Audio support has grown to include WAV files that use MP3 compression. There is a new referencing system called Delta II that is more robust than previous referencing systems. In fact, referencing is such a massive update that there is simply too much to list here.

Softimage has phased out the Foundation version of its product, leaving only Advanced and Essentials. At first this may seem to be a disappointment to current Foundation owners. However, Softimage is offering a very good upgrade price for those willing to step up to Essentials regardless of what version of Foundation they have. For a very reasonable fee Foundation users can now access the functions that only Essentials users could, such as: The FX Tree compositor Illusion, polygon reduction, GATOR, MOTOR, references, the ability to code operators, cloth, hair, rigid and soft body dynamics and more. As well as all the new features of XSI 7, such as ICE.

This release of XSI has really lived up to its expectations. There was so much hype around ICE and version 7 that many were worried it might not live up to it. But from what I've seen so far, it has gone beyond the hype and surpassed even the most hardcore critic's expectations.