XSI and Archiviz

[Nizar]

Hi,
anyone use SI in architectural project (modelling and rendering)?
I'm not involved in this type of project but I would like to know about.
Yesterday I see Iray (from mental ray makers), it look a wonderful product (I love realtime preview windows in Modo), I think this will be rally useful in XSI (and, in general in architectural preview). I know 3dsmax has this rendering natively, we can see this in XSI 2012 ?

[virtuald]

Hi, we use XSI for Archiviz exterior scene.

You see our works at http://www.virtuald.it

Paolo.

Moderator edit: please use the URL tags - HB

[ActionArt]

Just a guess but I'm pretty sure Iray will be in the next release, I don't think they have any real excuse for NOT having it by then, that would just be silly.

I know I'm hoping for it.

[Rork]

Hi Nizar,

there are a lot of people on this forum and xsibase that use Softimage for archviz, me included.
There are also a lot of threads on archviz on this forum and xsibase ;)

And for Iray, we just can hope, can we?

Although I prefer they fix the presets/library/disconnected rendertrees first before adding any new stuff. 2011.x is more or less useless until they fix that.

rob

[Nizar]

Hi, we use XSI for Archiviz exterior scene.

You see our works at http://www.virtuald.it

Paolo.

Ciao Paolo, notevoli i tuoi lavori, complimenti

Just a guess but I'm pretty sure Iray will be in the next release, I don't think they have any real excuse for NOT having it by then, that would just be silly.

I know I'm hoping for it.

Hi Nizar,

there are a lot of people on this forum and xsibase that use Softimage for archviz, me included.
There are also a lot of threads on archviz on this forum and xsibase ;)

And for Iray, we just can hope, can we?

Although I prefer they fix the presets/library/disconnected rendertrees first before adding any new stuff. 2011.x is more or less useless until they fix that.

rob

Before starting XSI studying, I believed XSI has the best Mental Ray integration (as Avid advise said). Now, I read too many negative comments about XSI and mental ray and many XSI user prefer 3dsm Mental ray solution...
In sincerity, in my deep ignorance, I thought XSI was not the best choice for archiviz (no real unit measure, no fast preview like modo or Fprime, no a fast rendering like, again, modo, cinema or 3dsm (+ Vray). Why do you prefer, for your archiviz works, XSI?

[ActionArt]

A lot of people complain about Mental Ray but I like it. I think if you take a bit of time to really learn about it, it will do just fine and it is very flexible. SI does integrate it better than other packages.

Personally, I find the region render tool in SI way more useful than Fprime. You can render what you want and it's actually accurate as to what the final render will be. I never liked Fprime that much myself. Now if they could just add Iray to the render region tool that would be nice...

[Maximus]

I used XSI for some archviz stuff and product stuff.
To be honest its really a total pain, only the passion and the time spent on it can help you keep working with it, but there is a point where this is not worth anymore.

What i hate about MR:

-Global illumination/final gather: This should be a priority at mental images, FG is so old that its embarassing compared to other render engine like Vray. They did a good step with Irradiance Particles but they let them die. Unpredictable results, scene dimension counts, and SI doesnt have a unit system you can rely on.

We have the chance to use FG + IP map on mental ray standalone version 3.8 but for some reason we dont get it implemented, and the ctrl.ghost geo shader is able to activate them but they are not stable at all, keep crashing and unpredictable results.
Also the IP still have an issue with the transparent materials, they cant pass through the material, thats why you might wanna use FG+IP wich is actually cool if only it would work, or would be implemented, or even better would be developed further by mental images.

-Slow sampling method wich is totally underlevel to something like QMC in Vray, once you want to rise up the quality a bit you have to increase sampling rate and AA filter with render times to the roof. This also kills your render time when you using proxy/instances/milion particles.

-Displacement: simply ridicolous rendering time compared to the rest of the world.

Other notes.

iRay you say? where is iRay? dont even dream to get iRay on Softimage because it will never happen, Softimage now is just ICE and everyone is waiting for Arnold so well..they dont see the point of implementing an archviz tool for the poor 2% of suicidal users that do archviz with xsi.

Mr 3.8 comes with progressive rendering, IBL, FG+IP possiblities, iRay, still we dont have any of those new features because they decided to not implement them. Wich to be honest i find absurd since if you decide in first place to bind a render engine to your 3d package you should fully implement it, otherwise just sell the package without render engine at less price and everyone go buy their favourite render engine.

Mental ray is in 3.9 beta testing, and as i said multiple times we still dont have full mental ray 3.8 implemented into Softimage, how can you even expect to get iRay? We got photometric lights active after years and those have been in mental ray since a lot of time now.

The photographic exposure and the whole photographic setup in softimage is messed up also, because softimage is built to work with values of 0 and 1, not with physically correct values, like mental ray and light is. This cause mess because photo exposure/cm^2 factor/shutter/iso/fnumber and everything that should reproduce real lights need to be evaluated and adjusted in good scale/proportion/units wich we dont have.
So its again a torture to get good results for interior and light conditions.
Try yourself to do a lamp material transparent with a photometric light inside in a night interior room, have fun.

Kinda went far enough, there are other many things like disconnecting shaders, architectural/mia_material differences and more annoying things going on, to me MR is going to die very soon, i already started to look elsewhere.
Indeed its good for animation/passes and people who are used to it.

You can see some images i've posted in this forum under "works" to see what i did with mental ray, and none of those were enjoyable in making, all were frustrating like hell.

my 2 cents.

[Nizar]

Wow Maximus, I see a "bit" frustration in your words...

I used XSI for some archviz stuff and product stuff.
To be honest its really a total pain, only the passion and the time spent on it can help you keep working with it, but there is a point where this is not worth anymore.

I take a look at your works, and I find it rally nice! But if you don't like how XSI work in your archiviz implementation, why do you use it? Modo i.e. is a nice package and has a fast render (Luxology compares his render engine to Vray), and it cost alone lesser then SI+Arnold or 3dsm+Vray (and Luxology has no killer annual forced release), or LW+Fryrender and other solution (I'm sure you know better then me). Not a critics in my words, only a simple question .

iRay you say? where is iRay?

Hey, I'm only a poor newbie I cannot discuss your technical point, If I must choose my software for archiviz, sure, your post persuade to burn SI and look to other package (but I'm in character modelling/animation and special effect, so I'm a bit comforted, in this aspect I read more positive comments).

[Hirazi Blue]

Well, ranting about Mental Ray has been
a popular pass-time in the worldwide XSI/Softimage
community for quite some time now,
even before external renderers became available.
I'd generally add a pinch of salt to any 2 cents...
Before you burn SI, I'd say, attempt to learn MR!
It might be frustrating at times, but unusable it's certainly not.
My own 2 cents... ;)

[Maximus]

Wow Maximus, I see a "bit" frustration in your words...

I used XSI for some archviz stuff and product stuff.
To be honest its really a total pain, only the passion and the time spent on it can help you keep working with it, but there is a point where this is not worth anymore.

I take a look at your works, and I find it rally nice! But if you don't like how XSI work in your archiviz implementation, why do you use it? Modo i.e. is a nice package and has a fast render (Luxology compares his render engine to Vray), and it cost alone lesser then SI+Arnold or 3dsm+Vray (and Luxology has no killer annual forced release), or LW+Fryrender and other solution (I'm sure you know better then me). Not a critics in my words, only a simple question .

iRay you say? where is iRay?

Hey, I'm only a poor newbie I cannot discuss your technical point, If I must choose my software for archiviz, sure, your post persuade to burn SI and look to other package (but I'm in character modelling/animation and special effect, so I'm a bit comforted, in this aspect I read more positive comments).

Hey, mine wasnt mean to be that harsh lol, its my english sucks a bit so sometimes i use words that might be a bit strong.
Regarding iRay i meant, check where is iRay now, its in Max, if they wanted to put it in Softimage it would already be there thats what i meant.

Regarding why i use Softimage for those kind of stuff i do, well it has the best interface/workflow/performance/stailibty of all the softwares i've tried, and i can tell you i didnt miss one, except blender.
I simply cant model in 3ds max, it takes 10 clicks to do things that i do in softimage with 2 clicks, the overall workflow is a total blast, i dont really get how people can work with that software at all. Uv texturing and UV manager in max is a hell to me, also the performance/stability/canvas/selections and tons of other things are really bad.
I am looking at Modo now, thats why i said i'm starting to look elsewhere, but to be honest its too much change in workflow and working philosophy, it has a really weird interface and modeling structure wich i'm not used to yet.

I simply cant trade what Softimage gives to me in other fields except rendering..wich really frustrates me at the moment, you know.. when you open 3ds max and see what Mental Ray has there, you just start asking hey.. wtf is going on here?
It has presets for interior/exteriors light conditions, it comes with A&D materials with presets for any kind of shader you want, it comes with presets for FG/GI setup its optimized, it has MetaSL support..,it comes with tons of stuff we dont have for some reason, and now iRay.

In the end its really hard to go away from Softimage because its incredbile, i'm just sad it went down in quality on the render side.
Lets hope vray or something else pop up soon, Mental ray is counter productive to me at the moment inside Softimage.

/cheers

[Nizar]

Hey, mine wasnt mean to be that harsh lol, its my english sucks a bit so sometimes i use words that might be a bit strong.

No no, I write from Italy, MY english suck, you are clear

Regarding iRay i meant, check where is iRay now, its in Max, if they wanted to put it in Softimage it would already be there thats what i meant.

As I wrote I'm the last arrived here, so cannot my sentence is not so reliable: the reason MR is not so advanced like in 3dsm is due by XSI and MR integration, so more slow implementation. I'm sure you know better then me. Reading your post, I have doubt about this point: advantage or no? And if it is an advantage this strong integration, can anyone explain me?

blender

blender stability is awesome! but ten years back in modelling and rendering (animation tools is rally good).

I simply cant model in 3ds max, it takes 10 clicks to do things that i do in softimage with 2 clicks, the overall workflow is a total blast, i dont really get how people can work with that software at all. Uv texturing and UV manager in max is a hell to me, also the performance/stability/canvas/selections and tons of other things are really bad.

Totally agree with you.

I am looking at Modo now, thats why i said i'm starting to look elsewhere, but to be honest its too much change in workflow and working philosophy, it has a really weird interface and modeling structure wich i'm not used to yet

As I said I'm the last one in this world, so don't misunderstood my words (I would not seem presumptuous to give advice with my limited experience): out of the box modo is not so nice as anyone said, but after a bit customization, you will see a big improvement. If you want, you can replicate XSI mouse setting, shourtcut and more. One rally nice option in modo is custom Piemenu, rally fast (especially if you doing repetitive operation like, I think, is in architectural modelling), you can adapt modelling tool at your needs, record most used tool operation in Macro and put in a customized pie menu... Cannot say nothing about rendering, but preview windows is fast and nice. You will hate shader tree (layers based, and no nodes...).

I simply cant trade what Softimage gives to me in other fields except rendering..wich really frustrates me at the moment, you know.. when you open 3ds max and see what Mental Ray has there, you just start asking hey.. wtf is going on here?

As said above, this is a point I don't understand: in SI, MR is totally integrated, in 3dsm not integrated... did the situation some in Avid era or was better?

About Vray, I don't see anywhere rumours about XSI release.

[ActionArt]

Modo has some very nice features but I found it very unstable which ruined the experience for me.

SI isn't the first to get MR features but I think it's because they spend the time to integrate them properly and make them reliable. Max is the first but look at what a mess it is. Nothing is done right...but it's the first!

I'd rather wait just a bit and get it done right.

Iray will be in SI, no doubt. And when it is, it'll probably work great.

[Nizar]

Modo has some very nice features but I found it very unstable which ruined the experience for me.

agree very unstable and sometime some tool generate strange things (thicken tool or fill hole in primis), in some circumstance modo has more bugs then tools... if they will realize a more stable 501 release, modo will be more desirable.

SI isn't the first to get MR features but I think it's because they spend the time to integrate them properly and make them reliable. Max is the first but look at what a mess it is. Nothing is done right...but it's the first!

Agree but don't understand: the advantage to have a perfect (?) MR integration, what is? More stable? Only my curiosity.

[ActionArt]

I would say so. More stable, work as expected, work with all the shaders etc. The opposite is Max. A half ass slapped on solution that never seems to get fixed.

[Nizar]

Stability is a good point, but this delay in development and lack feature would seem generate more moodiness then contentment.

IMHO, the professional works (I mean characters) I seen done in XSI are outstanding (rendering, modelling and post production, all look rally outstanding and all done with XIS internal tool).

[SreckoM]

Honest answer, do not spend your money and time on Softimage if you plan to work in Archviz. There are more versatile apps out there.
At the moment Softimage do not make your life easier in that area, as a matter a fact it is other side. And, which is more important, there are no signs that it will be improved in that area in near future. So besides stability I do not see any reason why should you even consider it as Archviz tool....