Vast XSI Learning Movies on YouTube tutorial - 3D Artists Group

Members AceMastermind and Rork at SI-Community have taken the time to compile and organize the training videos that used to accompany previous versions of Softimage XSI (and were available courtesy of VAST, the Virtual Academic Software Trust). 

While some workflows have changed and improved over time (and other new features added), a lot of the information here is still valid and can be a big help to understanding Modtool 6 & 7, along with newer versions of Softimage.

Modeling

Selection

• Selection overview
• Selection options
• Selection tools
• Selection filters
• Component selection
• Selection loops
• Selection explorer
• Selection wildcards
• Parenting
• Changing selection

Manipulation

• 3D style manipulators
• 3D SRT manipulators
• Local and global modes
• Additive mode
• Reference and planes
• Proportional
• Snapping
• Temporary pivot
• Symmetry
• Child compensation

Components

• Points, polygons and edges
• Cluster overview
• Cluster overlaps
• Cluster editing
• Cluster groups
• Edge smoothing and creasing
• Weight maps overview
• Face maker weight maps
• Display modes
• Relative mode

General Modeling

• Modeling sections
• Construction modes
• Topology operators overview
• Contextual menus
• Extrude and duplicate
• Adding components
• Symmetry modeling
• Transferring properties
• Polygon modeling, part 1
• Polygon modeling, part 2

Modifiers and Deformers

• Polygon topology
• Dissolve and collapse
• Knife
• Bevel
• Curve, cage, spine, surface, volume
• Lattice
• Deforms and weight maps
• Waves and particles
• Relax and smooth
• Shrinkwrap

Surfaces and Curves

• Topology types
• NURBS topology
• NURBS to mesh
• NURBS modeling, part 1
• NURBS modeling, part 2
• Curves topology
• Curves editing
• Lofting

Object Tools

• Subdivision surfaces overview
• Duplication options
• Clones
• Instances
• Army maker
• Particle instancing
• Groups
• Reference models, part 1
• Reference models, part 2

Texturing

Materials and Textures

• Materials
• Material Editor relational view
• Texture projections, part 1
• Texture projections, part 2
• Polygon texturing
• UV dataset
• Multiple projections
• Texture projections camera mapping

Texture and Layer Editor

• Texture Layer Editor introduction
• TLE overview
• TLE map lookup mask
• TLE clusters
• Texture Editor introduction
• Head texturing
• Unwrapping UVs, part 1
• Unwrapping UVs, part 2
• Unwrapping UVs, part 3
• Contour stretching UVs

Animation

Animation Structures

• Where animation lives, part 1
• Where animation lives, part 2
• The model structure, part 1
• The model structure, part 2
• Child compensation
• Marking Sets
• Function Curve Editor overview

Transformations

• Transforms
• Transform setup
• Pivots and neutral pose
• The rolling cube

Animation Mixing

• Introduction, part 1
• Introduction, part 2
• Introduction, part 3
• Mixing with f-curves
• Mixing with expressions
• Transitions
• Bridge transition
• Equalize
• Templates
• Static poses

Sources and Clips

• Sources
• Clip properties
• Time properties
• Relations between clips
• Offset map, part 1
• Offset map, part 2
• Offset effect
• Parent clipping
• Pose offset

Shape Animation (morphing)

• Introduction
• Construction modes
• Cluster shape combiner
• Shape mixers modes
• Shape reference mode
• Animation to shapes
• Plotting shapes into animation clips
• Selecting and replacing shape keys
• Shape merging
• Cluster and weight maps

Working with Audio

• Audio options
• Markers

Constraints

• Position
• Pin
• Curve Path
• Orientation, Direction
• Object to Cluster
• Multiple points
• Bounding Volume
• Pose, Distance, Scaling, Symmetry
• Up Vector

Skeletons and IK Solvers

• Chain concept and behavior
• Move joint tool
• 2D vs. 3D chains, Preferred angles
• IK rotation plane, joint limits, stiffness
• IK-FK blending
• Setting joint axes, mirroring limbs
• Shadow bones
• Neutral pose and pivot
• Chain constraining

Enveloping (skinning)

• Introduction
• Envelope setup
• Weight editing
• Multiple envelopes
• Reference pose

Character Rigs

• Proportional guide
• Foot roll
• Arms, hips and fingers
• Symmetry, chest and spine
• Shoulder, belly and ears
• Character setup
• Roll and skin options
• Shadow rigs
• Dog leg rig
• Quadruped rig

Character Development Kit

• Tail creation
• Tail spring
• Tail parameters
• Tail animation
• Tail IK-FK blend
• Control spine creation
• Control spine example
• Scripting commands

Animating Deformations

• Introduction
• Interpolation of enveloping shape
• Cluster material and UV interpolation
• Corrective shape modeling
• Quaternion roll distribution
• Pose based deformers
• Relaxing geometry
• Cage deform

Setups

• Link keys
• Device drivers
• Blending constraints
• Constraints example
• Linking constrains
• Camera blocking
• Animation mixer – Hand setup

Simulation

Rigid Body Dynamics

• Rigid body environment overview
• Establishing scale
• Laying out your components
• Active vs. passive objects
• Applying constraints
• Setting collisions

Rigid Body Dynamics Concepts

• Animation and initial state
• Working with center of mass
• Ghosting
• Hierarchies: managing rigid rigs
• The dynamics operator
• How adaptive collisions work
• Collisions settings
• Caching simulation to the mixer
• Optimization technique

Rigid Body Dynamics Examples

• Self-propelled multi-leg rig, part 1
• Self-propelled multi-leg rig, part 2
• Walking machine, part 1
• Walking machine, part 2
• Walking machine, part 3
• Drawbridge, part 1
• Drawbridge, part 2
• Drawbridge, part 3

Hair Concepts & Workflow

• System overview
• Surface hair
• Spline hair
• Building a mesh to work with Hair
• Transferring and using weight maps
• Working with combing
• Working with clumping
• Proportional and general deformers
• Adjusting parameters for fine tuning
• Creating curly hair effects

Hair Examples

• Working with symmetry
• Working with dynamics
• Obstacles
• Transferring UVs
• Texturing surface hair using scalar state
• Texturing spline hair using scalar state
• Hair shader: volume vs. geometry
• Hair shader: settings overview
• Hair geometry shader
• Using detail shadow maps

Hair Optimization

• Hair operators
• Volume vs. geometry render times
• Pipeline optimization technique

Particle Introduction

• System overview
• Event overview
• Accessing the data
• Creating a simple smoke trail

Particle Concepts

• Sketching particles
• Inter-particle avoidance and collisions
• Sprites
• Sprite animation controls
• Sprite render times
• Object instancing
• Particle goals
• Particle goals: curves
• Particle shader basics
• Gradient

Particle Examples

• Scripted events: reading data
• Scripted events: writing data
• User parameters
• Scripting goal behavior, part 1
• Scripting goal behavior, part 2
• Scripting goal behavior, part 3
• Render tree: gradient control using vector info
• Render tree: gradient control using UVs

Rendering

Render Tree Basics

• Introducing the Render Tree
• Extracting position information
• Extracting rotation information
• Extracting UV information

Render Tree Techniques

• Applying UV perturbation
• Creating a Wipe Mask
• Adding perturbation to the Wipe Mask
• Using the mask in FX Tree composite
• Using weight maps to control displacement maps
• Baking lighting information into color at vertices
• Color at vertices continued
• Altering rendering based on raytracing state
• Introducing the Color Matte shader
• Using Color Matte to change surface shading

Creating Effects with the Gradient Shader

• Introducing the Gradient Shader
• Caustic effects
• Flame animation
• Instanciating the flames using the Sprite Shader
• Distance and layered fog
• Custom illumination with the Incidence Shader
• Non-realistic illumination models (toon)
• Rim light effect on skin-like shading
• Fake subsurface scattering look

Elliptical Filtering

• Introducing Elliptical Filtering
• How Elliptical Filtering works
• Why flickering and shimmering occur
• Using Elliptical Filtering
• Converting a texture to a Memory Map
• Creating a Memory Map with pyramidal levels
• Extracting pyramidal levels from a Memory Map

Bump Mapping

• Introducing Bump Mapping
• How shaders relate during Bump Map computation
• Applying a local Bump Map
• Global vs. local Bump Mapping
• Object scaling vs. Bump Map parameters
• Resolving flickering with Elliptical Filtering
• Resolving flickering with distance-based modulation
• Creating surface water drops with Vein
• Using procedural shaders as a Bump Map source
• Blending and mixing multiple Bump Map sources

Lighting

• Light types
• Area lights
• Shadow Maps
• Volumic Shadow Maps
• Volumic Shadow Maps for hair
• Introducing Caustics
• Caustics in use
• Introducing Global Illumination
• Global Illumination in use
• Radiance Control

Final Gathering

• Introducing Final Gathering
• Final Gathering accuracy
• Final Gathering radius
• Accuracy vs. radius
• Setup and workflow
• Radiance Control on indirect light levels
• Image-based lighting
• Using auto-compute to set Final Gathering
• Photon & Final Gathering management for render farms
• Using ray type to optimize Final Gathering

Render Passes Explained

• Introducing Render Passes
• Controlling the Pass Camera
• Render options
• Shader stack
• Partitions
• Overrides

Render Passes in Use

• Matte pass
• Ambient and diffuse pass
• Specular pass
• Shadow pass
• Volumic light pass
• Caustic pass
• Global Illumination pass
• Final Gathering pass
• Image-based pass

Antialiasing and Adaptive Sampling

• What is aliasing
• How aliasing works
• Render resolution vs. antialiasing
• How adaptive sampling works
• Antialiasing tuning tips, part 1
• Antialiasing tuning tips, part 2
• Different filter types
• Filter types illustrated
• Diagnostics
• Threshold example
• Jitter example
• Rapid motion shading rate

Motion Blur

• Introducing motion blur
• How motion blur works
• Motion blur theory – recap
• Introducing motion blur threshold
• Motion blur threshold example
• Motion blur modes
• Rapid motion and motion blur

BSP Tree

• Introducing BSP tree
• BSP tree parameters
• How BSP tree works
• BSP tree and render performance
• BSP tree statistics
• BSP tree tuning setup
• BSP tree render tests
• BSP tree render test results
• Using the BSP tree tuner script

Rendermap: Concept and Examples

• Introducing rendermap
• Using unique UVs
• Multiple objects to a single texture
• Multiple objects to multiple maps

Rendermap: Extracting Normal Maps

• Manually extracting normal map
• Applying the normal map
• Optimizing normal map extraction
• Using GPU Surface FX

Rendermap: High Resolution Maps

• Introduction
• Basic setup
• Calibrating the camera
• Extracting the displacement map
• Applying the displacement map

Displacement Maps

• Introduction
• Simple displacement
• Discontinuity
• Tessellation parameters
• Tuning the parameter
• Fine approximation
• Scaling vs. length view
• Displacement math introduction
• Math nodes: Unary, Basic, Bias gain
• Extracting displacement using scalar math