Softimage Blog

The settings for the File Browser you get when you select File -> Open are stored in three different places in your Softimage user account folder. (don’t shoot the messenger!)

A binary file called DSModalBrowse . It stores whether you are in List View mode or Thumbnail mode, the column settings for [...]

Let’s look at a short technique that will allow you to export any custom function curve or scripting math function to a texturable node to be used in the rendertree.
Let’s get a curve
We start by taking a poly strip, with a 100×1 subdivisions. This will be our “drawing” table. We then make a cluster of [...]

Some of you may remember the Histogram plugin that I wrote for XSI’s rendertree. It’s a tool for visualising exactly what is happening in your shading networks and can be invaluable when trying to find out why your shader is behaving unexpectedly.
Since the Histogram display window is just a COM application launched by the equivalent [...]

Generating anisotropic highlights or reflections on polygon objects, was a real pain for many years. We always were jealous of NURBS surfaces which allowed artists to generate anisotropy along UV parametrization. Once polygons received the ability of anisotropic highlights, the users wanted more. Anisotropic reflections have the power to add great deal of realism to [...]

Starting from my last post I’d like to show you how I use Python modules in XSI instead of normal self installing plugins.
You know that XSI automatically recognizes plugins when a proper file is putted under a folder like this: [workgroup or user]\Application\Plugins. We don’t need to specify anything else. Very clever and very useful [...]