It’s official. Just a little bit more stuff to work out with my workflow, and I will officially switch from Autodesk 3ds to Softimage XSI. I’ve used 3ds for the past 3 years, and never even touched another package for too long of a time. I’m still going to use 3ds for effects and probably some rendering, Maya for animation and cloth/hair dynamics, but for the most part, I’m going to move my whole pipeline over to XSI. The modeling is SO much sexier, the rendering has more capability, it has mental ray too, but XSI’s render tree is SO pretty to use, and it’s unbelievably powerful. Not to mention the built-in composition functionality, so you could edit your work right from XSI.
I just had to tell this to all of you kirupians. And also, for anyone that is looking to start in anything 3D, I strongly recommend XSI. I’m learning how to use it by watching Digital Tutors’ products, and for the most part, they cover everything you need to jump right into some serious production.
It’s like an artist getting a new set of pencils for his arsenal of tools 
