XSI to Maya translation

[Ryan O'Phelan]

I cringe to even ask, but we're faced with a vendor handing us
animation (rigs, geo, etc) from XSI and asking to edit/finish in Maya.
My fist assumption was that we could only expect to get geo-cached
un-rigged geo from those files via FBX.

Is this still the case? Is there a better way? Do deformers actually
convert through FBX now?

Thanks for any insight guys!

Ryan

[ctjanney]

Funny, we're going through the same thing....

if you don't have Soft, I suggest downloading the 30-day trial,
because if you're getting .scn files, you're in trouble otherwise.
You need dotXSI files from your vender, which you *should* be able to
bring in via the crosswalk plugin from autodesk

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=13525184&linkID=12544121

which will seek out your maya/3dsmax install and add the crosswalk
plugin. Under windows->preferences->plugins, you need to find the
dotXSIimportExport plugin (why not "crosswalk"? no idea...), then
you'll see the crosswalk import option.

Good luck!

-ctj

[Phinnaeus OConnor]

Has anyone dealt with rendering Shave and Haircut hair to high resolution in
Maya 2010/2011?

Trying to render at A4 for print, when I test it at half res it all looks fine
then when I max up the quality settings and leave rendering overnight, it looks
like pants, and a bad haircut.

I was looking at maybe attaching Maya's hair system to the Shave curves, so i
can still use the grooming tools.

Has any body had any experience with Shave and might know why it does this?

Phin

[Ryan O'Phelan]

totally forgot about crosswalk. 

For anyone interested in the future. 

http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xwalkdocs/hh_start.htm

Looks like skinning, cameras, and geo come through. Nice.

R

[Steve Davy]

Is that website supposed to be working?

The links all get 404 page errors.

---

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:29:11 -0500
Subject: Re: [maya_he3d] Re: XSI to Maya translation
From: desig...@gmail.com
To: maya...@googlegroups.com

[Steve Davy]

Never mind.

If you use the scroll buttons you can get to the content about Maya. The direct link doesn't work though.

---

From: stevi...@hotmail.com
To: maya...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [maya_he3d] Re: XSI to Maya translation
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:43:39 -0800

[stephenkmann]

so what is this?

Sending a character from Maya to Softimage with ICEFlow - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQseJNWaLZQ

Sending a character from Maya to Softimage with ICEFlow - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSqdukvqLY



is this out yet? ( i dont have xsi so...)
I do have "Export Selected to Mudbox" but its greyed out.

-=s

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Neat. I can't imagine ever using this. Still, I'm glad Autodesk is giving an effort to making bridges between their products. 

R

[Tim Leydecker]

Damn cool.

It seems part of the ASP/SAP subscription. Never noticed that...

Cheers

tim

On 26.01.2011 05:46, Ryan O'Phelan wrote:
> Neat. I can't imagine ever using this. Still, I'm glad Autodesk is giving an
> effort to making bridges between their products.
>
> R
>
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 4:01 PM, stephenkmann<stephe...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> so what is this?
>> Sending a character from Maya to Softimage with ICEFlow - Part 1
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQseJNWaLZQ
>>
>> Sending a character from Maya to Softimage with ICEFlow - Part 2
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSqdukvqLY
>>
>>
>>
>> is this out yet? ( i dont have xsi so...)
>> I do have "Export Selected to Mudbox" but its greyed out.
>>
>> -=s
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Steve Davy<stevi...@hotmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Never mind.
>>>
>>> If you use the scroll buttons you can get to the content about Maya. The
>>> direct link doesn't work though.
>>>

>>> ------------------------------

>>> From: stevi...@hotmail.com
>>>
>>> To: maya...@googlegroups.com
>>> Subject: RE: [maya_he3d] Re: XSI to Maya translation
>>> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:43:39 -0800
>>>
>>>
>>> Is that website supposed to be working?
>>>
>>> The links all get 404 page errors.
>>>

>>> ------------------------------

[ctjanney]

I don't know if you had any luck, but I just imported animation, rig
and setup of characters from XSI into maya pretty flawlessly. Here's
the steps:


- you need to have XSI...I'm running the 30-day trial for now
- after installing XSI, install crosswalk from the link I sent earlier
- from within XSI, make sure all your geo et all is local and not
referenced.
- If you look through view->explorer and see a little white man
next to any character geo, right click and chose "make local"
- when all references are local, middle click the root (top node in
explorer), which will select the entire character and rig
- file ->export->crosswalk-> for maya
- chose the location of the dotXSI file you're going to output
- export

in maya
- windows->preferences->plugin manager->dotXSIimportExport
- import using crosswalk file format, select the XSI file you exported
- wait...it takes a while

That should be all.

-ctj

[Ryan O'Phelan]

Thanks ctj,

The artist that set up the XSI trial told me that he had a problem with the crosswalk install ( didn't look into it), and so we just tried the FBX export method, and we were able to convert all of the shots (12) that way. If I come across a more elaborate scene where I need to bring in rigs, I'll look back into crosswalk. 

R