The “XSI flower” was a graphic design element used with releases 4.0 and 5.0.

I call it the “flower” because I found it in a folder named “XSI_FLOWER”. It appears to have been done in Photoshop (there was a .PSD file there) and this JPG:

UPDATES:
Thanks to Hirazi Blue (in the comments) and takita (XSI list) for pointing out that the flower logo was created by me company using Softimage|XSI itself.

In the comments, Hirazi also mentions that:

There was a nice 5 page article specifically about this design in the August 2007, #93 issue of 3D World (pages 44-48).

So, I dug up (aka googled) some more info:

• The cover page for the XSI 4.0 New Features document includes this:
  

  Cover: “Water Flowers” designed for Softimage Co. by Me Company, using SOFTIMAGE|XSI.

• On xsibase I found this quote from Gareth Morgan (Senior Product Manager, Softimage):
  

  “We’re really proud of the new symbol. Yes, of course – it was 100% designed and realized in XSI. The amazing designers at Me Company (London, UK)worked with our Creative Director and designed the ‘Water Flower’ exclusively for v.4.0 – it’s a strong, colourful symbol that is easily identifiable, translates from print to screen beautifully, and communicates the vision of our brand for XSI. Me Company designed the Water Flower as model in XSI, and used the lighting and texturing tools in to give the flower it’s look and feel, and then used the advanced rendering capabilities in XSI to output the design.”

• The “water flower” logo was mentioned in the book More than a Name: An Introduction to Branding:
  
• Some info about Me Company:
  

  Although the majority of Me Company’s output is in two dimensions, the production process involves three, “XSI is our illustration tool of choice,” says Paul. “It’s the way we express our ideas.” The results, which Paul calls ‘hi-res stills’, capture the world of possibilities Paul and his creative allies envision in response to a particular brief. What makes this work is a faith in the value of the creative process itself: “We follow a line that interests us and try hard to push things forward.”

http://vimeo.com/25238551
Softimage|XSI The Bottom Line

From “Fuel For The Mind”, edition 1, La Cite des Enfants Perdus—Buf Compagnie 1995
(aka The City of Lost Children)

http://vimeo.com/24917633

I remember watching this back in the old days when I worked at Softimage/Microsoft.
Many thanks to Miquel Campos for giving me this CD.

What’s this flea made of anyway? It’s not an electronic model, not a digitized photo, it’s a cute little chimera concocted in C. G. I., modelled, dreaded, and animated by his creators at the Buf Compagnie, using a mythological method of mathematics that took hundreds of hours on the computer.

The surface texture was obtain-ed by using several layers of lovely materials such as beach pebbles, green beans, snake skin, pig skin, leather, etc. The animators studied hours and hours of documentary films to find out how fleas act out there in nature. Now they know everything about how fleas hop, skip, jump, land, sting and drink, and do scores of dirty itchy tricks that have earned them a worldwide reputation.

Given the variety of shots where the flea would star, the animators modelled a series of fleas with varying degrees of definition. The most sharply defined had no less than 800.000 polygons.

Prix Ars Electronica 1996

City of Lost Children trailer

Eye-Candy Reel 2005
SOFTIMAGE|XSI 5.0

http://vimeo.com/24621051

While I was cleaning out my basement, I found Computer Graphics World, Feb 1998, sitting on top of my pile of decades-old Sports Illustrateds.

On the cover, Geri from Pixar was created using a new surface modeling technology called “subdivision surfaces”.

In the Spotlight, “Maya…appears to have positioned itself as a true competitor with the likes of major players such as Softimage…”

Click to view full page from CGW

Formerly code-named Digital Studio, Softimage/DS is “a complete turnkey system [that] costs approximately $100,000”

Click to view full page from CGW

Feature article: Unraveling Riven
To achieve the “next level of graphic reality…Cyan switched from Mac-based Vision3D from Strata, which was used to develop Myst, to the SGI version of Softimage 3D.”

This huge set, which consists of more than 2 million faces and 20,000-plus models, required two hours just to load in Softimage.

SOFTIMAGE Resource Guide Summary 1997

From the Summer 1997 Resource Guide, an ad for the complete line of digital media creation: 3D, Digital Studio, Toonz, and Eddie.

Thanks to Alan Fregtman for sending me the links.

Softimage 3D promotional video tape 1995 : Digital Domain, Psygnosis, Industrial Light and Magic and more…
Part 1:

Part 2:

Thanks to Miquel Campos, who brought me some vintage SOFTIMAGE|3D stuff all the way from Spain ;-), including a SOFTIMAGE|3D demo disk from 1999.

From the demo CD, here’s the advanced character animation demo, given by some guy who looks vaguely familiar.

http://vimeo.com/23367433

Thanks to Octavian from the XSI mailing list, here’s a reel from an old XSI CD he had.
Not sure if it is from XSI 1.5 or XSI 2.0.

http://vimeo.com/23058260

Here’s a collage of frames from the reel:

Some poladroid pictures of shirts I found while cleaning out my attic yesterday.

T-shirt from a SOFTIMAGE|3D training kit:

SOFTIMAGE|SDK t-shirt (front, back)

Softimage 10 years:

Softimage Technology Group–For awhile, I was part of the Technology Group, which was a group of Sumatra and DS developers charged with building common technology between DS and Sumatra.

IBC ’95. A month after I joined Softimage, they sent me to Amsterdam for IBC. I had been training for the Montreal marathon; instead I did the half in Amsterdam in the rain.

SIGGRAPH ’96 in New Orleans. I did the Canal Street Classic 5k while I was down at siggraph. It started and ended right outside my hotel, which was convenient. One of the hottest runs I’ve ever done; not enjoyable at all.