Softimage XSI’s latest offering is affordable to teachers, students and educational institutions.

Softimage has been hard at work creating a more robust version of its 3D software package. The latest incarnation, Softimage XSI v.4.0, has distinct advantages in terms of productivity, accessibility and flexibility. With its foundation of mature, effective technology, XSI is arguably well-positioned to outpace its competitors in the market. Having proven itself on such films as Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Titanic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a few, Softimage is now ready to bring XSI to a wider creative community. Their latest education initiative is putting these tools into the hands of tomorrow’s professionals. What generally retails for $9,000 is now being offered to students, teachers and educational institutions for $300 — even as little as $175 for a one-year subscription. If that isn’t enough, a full-fledged version of XSI also will be shipping with Valve’s Half-Life 2, so that players can build models and level modifications for the game.

The educational software comes with all of the advanced features and functionality that the big-time studios are using. Through authorized training centers, vocational art schools, user groups, books, DVDs and a growing bank of online tutorials and support services, the intent is twofold: (1) to meet the increased demand for XSI talent working on some of the most rewarding feature film, visual effects and game development projects; and (2) to help people who are interested in adopting XSI to be as effective as possible as quickly as possible.

Favorable Learning Curve
The NAD Centre in Montreal has been training students and professionals on Softimage’s products for the last 10-plus years. Louis Alexander Lord, an instructor at NAD Centre, teaches how to create special effects for television and movies. Lord recommends that XSI’s ease of use is equally beneficial for the exigencies of commercial production as well as the creative, experimental needs of the classroom.

“Softimage has worked on speed of workflow since the beginning, and it shows,” says Lord. “XSI is visually interesting to work with. The interface is great, and the students learn really fast.”

Stonehenge done in XSI, rendered with mental ray. All Mesmer images © 2004 Mesmer Inc. and Anthony Rossano.

The NAD Centre had taught Softimage 3D before switching to Softimage XSI. Since the transition, the instructors have seen a drastic change in the performance of their students. “Everything went skyrocket in terms of learning,” Lord adds. Whereas some 3D packages can be unwieldy, with XSI the learning curve slopes in a more forgiving direction. “Initially, it may be difficult, but once people understand the paradigm, because everything is so consistent within the software and behaves as you expect, what you learn on the first day seems to apply to the second day. So, after a year of working, even if the next year you have to do something completely different, you actually have a good basis of understanding for how to navigate in the new task.”

Lord is not alone in his enthusiasm for the progress and prospects of his students. Monty Clark is the chair of game art and design at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, and he believes that XSI is at the forefront of 3D content creation tools. The Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale is one of 30 such schools throughout the United States, with a handful also in Canada, that teaches “reality-based” concepts, techniques and technologies currently used in the entertainment industry.

Clark says, “It’s not like when I did my undergraduate degree, where the professor would come in, blow the dust off his syllabus and go through the same thing he’s done for the last 20 years. Here, the industry changes constantly, so our curriculum reflects what is being used in the industry. The underlying art foundations stay the same, but we change and adapt to teach the appropriate industry-related technologies.”