Usually you create all of your animation, set-up your shaders and lights correctly, then render it all out, sometimes in sections, to be put together somewhere else with effects added for that special touch. With SX6.02F, that can be one less program you have to buy. Using SX6.02F Illusion, you can bring in your animated clips and overlay them in any fashion you deem fit. Then using the FxOperator, you have a choice of up to 130 film quality effects that you can attach and organize for each one of your clips in the FxTree in a node-type fashion. Depending on your hierarchy and settings of each node and their inputs/outputs, you’ll get different results that can all be seen within the FxViewer. Moreover, all of these can influence the entire layer or be confined using masks and garbage masks. With the SX6.02F Illusion to help in your post-production compositing, you’ll get better control over the final look of your performances.
Depth of Options
One of the most attractive offerings you’ll notice is how customizable SX6.02F’s short cuts and user-model interactions can be, especially if you’re coming from another package. As was mentioned earlier, SX6.02F has a different workflow from the norm, but is well suited for its environment. As a way of acknowledging this, they have included an extremely close approximation of keyboard layouts of such popular programs such as Autodesk Maya and 3DS Max. You also have the option of mapping the keys yourself and saving that layout for later use. The only danger in doing this is that you lose a lot of the quick access to features essential to SX6.02F’s native environment. Because I am most dominantly a Maya animator, I found a good middle ground by adjusting the general preferences, which are exhaustive, to get the best of both worlds.
Many production pipelines include multiple applications, which assets must pass through. Softimage’s Crosswalk interoperability is SX6.02F’s means of exporting for different formats. Some of the basic export options are for the native dot SX6.02F, FBX format, and COLLADA, an XML-based digital asset exchange schema. If you also have Autodesk’s Maya and/or 3DS Max in your pipeline, as I do, SX6.02F provides a plug-in specifically to get its assets reliably into these programs. On the list of exportable goods, you get polygon geometry, basic lighting and cameras, skinning and bones, animated fcurve information, as well as a few other basic scene elements. Overall, this makes a very attractive incentive to see if SX6.02F is a good fit for your team.
From within SX6.02F, several options are available to transfer information from model to model in order to maximize your time and your assets. Using GATOR (Generalized Attributes Transfer Operator), you can move aspects of a model such as materials, texture UVs, envelope weights, etc. to another target object. With MOTOR, rigged characters with the same bone structure and tagged labels can transfer animation. This works not only for digital animation done in SX6.02F, but also for motion-captured animation performed by actors. Since SX6.02F allows you to reference the original model or clip, you can change or layer additional information without losing the source information.
SX6.02F offers an extensive amount of opportunities through its scripting options and environments. Where most 3D applications have their own scripting language that allows you to modify its under-workings, SX6.02F supports the use of the more widely used languages such as C+, Python, and .NET compliant languages. The shaders are not only programmable, but are real-time too so you can see exactly what your model will look like in its final environment. To round it all off, the Integrated Tools Development Environment (TDE) allows a team to create, manage, and execute their own tools from SX6.02F as well as debug. These offerings not only allow for quick acclimation for those with a programming background, but also speed up the workflow by keeping everything more centralized.
Performance
While it still isn't available for the native Mac OS, I found the environment very responsive while using SX6.02F through Bootcamp on my 32-bit Mac system. One of the new technologies that can be acknowledged for this is the gigapolygon core. Integrated into SX6.02F’s engine, it allows an artist to sculpt and move millions of polygons in real-time, without loss of geometry or its various attributes. By helping to load all that information into memory, it increases the speed of the calculations, thus making the geometry more manageable.
Value
SX6.02F is a very capable tool that works hard to provide more for its users. Everything you need to create a final animation is available to you, cutting out a lot of extra software you won’t need. More importantly, the work that is possible out of SX6.02F is astonishingly smooth and highly detailed. With its helpful, organizational nature, this software should be an attractive choice, whether you’re a loner or part of a wide-scale team of artists. The pricing levels for the different XSI products are also very competitive with the leading 3D products, yet offer features that are quite impressive for their cost. SX6.02F continues XSI’s reputation as a serious industry contender, even for ultra-low budget films.
Final Comments SX6.02F has a very matter-of-fact way of going about things that may, at first, seem sterile to new users, but over time gives a far more streamlined experience. To the unfamiliar, nothing in the interface really jumps out at you, so you have to work a little harder to explore and see what each palette’s purpose specifically is, because it looks all the same. However, once you understand the tools, options, and keyboard shortcuts, you can truly enjoy all the extra features that await those who dig a little deeper. For the price and the features it offers, it’s hard to beat choosing SX6.02F to get the job done!
Ease
of Use
7.5
Depth
of Options
9.5
Performance
10.0
Value
10.0
Overall
Score
9.3
Michael Muwanguzi is a graphic artist and web designer currently living in Los Angeles, CA. Apart from working on print ads, web-related advertising, and 3D design work, he is currently working on new film production work and is designing a 3D adventure game from scratch.
