eX-SI

ICE, scripting, and other tech stuff about Softimage aka XSI

Unlimited xsibatch processing

Posted on August 26, 2009 by xsisupport

As of Softimage 7.5, you get unlimited batch processing. Before, you got 8 Processing tokens with Advanced and 4 with Essentials.

Batch processing is where you run “xsibatch -processing -script”. Batch processing can includes things like exporting .mi2 files, exporting rib files, baking, committing, asset management, custom render management/submission, dynamics, … anything in a complex pipeline that requires automation and remote processing, but not rendering. (Ref: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4870718&postcount=10)

Subscribe to the Softimage KB

Posted on August 26, 2009 by xsisupport

Here’s the RSS feed for the Softimage Knowledge Base on autodesk.com:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syn/rss?siteID=123112&id=2334144&linkID=12544120

You can subscribe to the KBs for other products like Maya, Mudbox, and MotionBuilder. Go here to get the RSS feeds for those and other products.

I subscribe to the RSS feed for AutoCAD, because they always have the latest info on licensing.

Changing the default Project folders

Posted on July 29, 2009 by xsisupport

The default directory structure for new Projects is specified by a set of values in the registry.

Look under the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Softimage\SOFTIMAGE Application\C:|Softimage|Softimage_7.5|Application|bin\Default Directory Structure.

You can add new directories by adding a new string value to the Default Directory Structure registry key.

A plug-in that updates the default directory structure was posted to the XSI Mailing list .

Also posted in the Autodesk KB.

Redirecting ray3 output

Posted on June 11, 2009 by xsisupport

ray3.exe outputs to STDERR, so you cannot simply do this:

ray3 -v 6 test.mi > out.txt

You have to do something like this:

ray3 -v 6 test.mi 2>out.txt

In the above command, 2>out.txt redirects STDERR to the file out.txt.

Or you can do this, which redirects all output (STDOUT and STDERR) to out.txt:

ray3 -v 6 test.mi >out.txt 2>&1

References:

Use the color picker to pick colors outside the Softimage window

Posted on May 28, 2009 by xsisupport

You would never expect it, because the mouse pointer changes and the Color Preview swatch does not update, but you can use the color picker outside of the Softimage window. Just activate the color picker, point outside the XSI window, and click.

So, for example, you can open an image in a viewer and grab colors from the image into Softimage.