Recently a few customers have asked Autodesk support about converting their Softimage EMDL files, and whether they could somehow get Softimage licenses to do it. (One Autodesk person even asked me whether I know anyone who could answer Softimage questions! 😉

You actually don’t need a license, because you can do it with xsibatch. Just add the -processing flag to do it without using a license.

xsibatch.exe -processing -script "S:\solidangle\softimage\convert_emdl.pys" -main "main"

Here’s an example script that loads a model and exports it to Alembic:

def main():
    Application.ImportModel("S:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2015 SP2\Data\XSI_SAMPLES\Models\Jaiqua.emdl", "", "", "", "", "", "")

    path = "S:\Projects\softimage\support\Models\{0}.abc".format( Application.Selection(0).Name )

    model = "B:{0}".format( Application.Selection(0).Name )

    Application.AbcExport( path, 1,2, model, False, "Ogawa", "Color, Scale, Size, PointVelocity, Orientation, AngularVelocity, Shape, StrandPosition, StrandVelocity, StrandDeform, StrandOrientation, StrandUpVector, StrandColor, StrandSize, ColorAlongStrands", "Materials, MaterialID, PointUserMotions", "")     

PS Here’s the Softimage SDK help