Crosswalk questions...

[wannabeArtist]

Hi,

I find myself using both XSI and Max these days

It's not too often that I have to mix the two, at least not so far, but it seems a bit complicated when I do have to transfer something.

If you do need to import things into XSI, what is the best format - dotXSI or FBX? I have tried both and neither seem to do a very complete job. In particular, the mental ray materials seem to be impossible to transfer? If I setup an arch&design (= mia_material) in Max it translates as Phong in XSI - or actually I think it never leaves Max as a mental ray material - any thoughts on this?

(Moderator edit - I've moved this topic to Troubleshooting, as this is the closest we've got to a "General" Softimage-related forum within our little community -HB)

[satyajit]

FBX is an wonderful format for transfers from XSI to Max and vice versa. If you take care of little things like maintaining aspect ratios of camera etc., it's possible to transfer meshes, UVs and animations.

But you can't transfer anything between these two which are intrinsic features. Still now, the Max and XSI have very different shader tree system, rigging system, expressions, simulation systems...and the list will go on.

Thats why if you transfer anything you have to set up the shader tree again.

[wannabeArtist]

Thanks for the reply,

Ok, well I guess it helps quite a bit if the UVs are transfered - I'm not sure if I messed up something last time, because somehow I though the UVs were also messed up. If they do transfer, then replacing the phongs with mia_material nodes is not that big of problem. I better try again.

[wannabeArtist]

Hello again,

I'm still a little confused with FBX.

Is there a way to import an animated camera from Max to XSI, so that it will match with the original?

My problem is, that the (turning) camera imports nicely, but what was a 100 frames in Max is now 40 in XSI. If I play it in real time I get the same movement, but it would be important in this case to get the same number of frames too.

[Hirazi Blue]

First up: I changed the title of this thread to reflect the slight change in topic.
Opening a new thread next time would be advisable.

Secondly: if all else fails, you could try the ancient ms_CameraConverter scripts.
According to their website they were last tested for XSI 4 & Max 6, but you could still give it a try
(like I said: "if all else fails")

[wannabeArtist]

Thanks Hirazi,

I'll check out the script. First I will verify one more time that I actually have all the frame rate related settings in sync.

Sorry about the thread name, my questions have a tendency of spawning new ones

[Hirazi Blue]

No problem...
I was just thinking (I'm only half awake... ):
Couldn't you just retime the keys on your camera using the methods described in:
Animation > Editing Function Curves > Scaling, Offsetting, or Retiming Fcurve Animation

[Taros]

FBX is an wonderful format for transfers from XSI to Max and vice versa. If you take care of little things like maintaining aspect ratios of camera etc., it's possible to transfer meshes, UVs and animations.

But you can't transfer anything between these two which are intrinsic features. Still now, the Max and XSI have very different shader tree system, rigging system, expressions, simulation systems...and the list will go on.

Thats why if you transfer anything you have to set up the shader tree again.

This is not completely true. Try to export an fbx and load it again into SI. I am using version 2011.
Though the fbx file includes uvs, they can't be imported back in SI. You can import the fbx into 3dsmax, that was exported from SI and get all uvs there, but the same file have no uvs, as soon as is imported in SI. Crazy!
The only solution is to use Collada currently. But there you have problems with maya... a neverending story.

I don't know a file format, that supports the most important features together like: UVs, Material Names and similar.
Always there is something missed.

This make it sometimes impossible, to work with teams, that use different software packages.

[Hirazi Blue]

While I somehow doubt this to be the issue you are having with FBX,
I do hope, you are aware of the fact that the FBX importer doesn't support multiple UVs (by design???).
Knowledge Base
;)