[Mihai]

Hervé, just hold down S and use left, middle, right buttons to navigate. Or just press and release S, and you are in "navigation mode". I like the fact they used the S key for this because with Alt, you have to hold your thumb in an awkward position, or constantly move you hand from Alt, to the rest of the keys. Using S, you just rest your hand naturally on the keyboard, and can quickly access the other keys. Small thing, but as you constantly navigate the window, it's nice:) You will find in XSI, the heavy use of all three mouse buttons, and they all do different things depending on what tool or mode you're in. Mouse buttons plus Alt, Shift, Ctrl give you lots of options, and almost each modeling tool uses them for different options. You should first get familiar with the keyboard shortcuts because xsi relies very much on the shortcuts. Not sure if you have a quick reference card with the demo, but if you do print it out I have the foundation version, for now

[Hervé]

I guess I'll have to buy another mouse, coz mine has the wheel for third button.. it is a five buttons with te wheel acting as a third button... pheww...

I already like some of the tools especially the extrude ones (a current pain in LW, fast but a pain in some situations)... I might get the dvd for starter.. any recommendations regarding DVD's or books...

I have a ref card somewhere from an ex_lw_guru... now where's...

Anyway, nice features... but a pretty big app... he he

--- thanks for the tip-----

[Mihai]

I also have a wheel-button type mouse but the wheel button only takes light pressure to press so it's pretty comfortable. It's the older Microsoft Intellimouse, not the new one. The new one is terrible.....going to miss the one I have when it finally disintegrates in my hand

To learn it, I really recommend the manuals. They are really good. Btw, open the html help (should be in the Softimage folder), and do a search for "sticky". You'll find help about two important concepts in xsi regarding selecting tools, "sticky mode" and "supra mode". They will allow you to work much faster.

Here are the two paragraphs:

Sticky Mode

You can activate a tool in this mode by quickly pressing and releasing its supra key. Once the tool is active, you can click and drag the mouse to use the tool. The tool remains active until you choose another tool. To deactivate the tool, press a key a second time or press Esc — the default tool becomes activated.

Note that if you press and hold the key for too long, it does not get activated because XSI assumes that you meant to activate the tool in supra mode and changed your mind.

You can enable or disable sticky keys as well as set the delay in the Interaction preferences. For more information about preferences, see Chapter 26: User Preferences.

Supra (Temporary) Mode

You can activate a tool in supra, or temporary, mode by holding down its key while manipulating the mouse. When activated in this way, the tool temporarily overrides the current tool. As soon as you release the key, the previous tool is re-activated.

For example, you can press and release the t key to activate the Select Point tool in sticky mode. Select some points, then press and hold the o key while dragging the mouse to orbit the camera around the object in supra mode. As soon as you release the o key, Select Point is active again and you can select points on the other side of the object.

Btw, instead of pressing o like they say, just use S for all navigation. The o, p and z keys are kind of redundant for navigation.

[Yog]

I guess I'll have to buy another mouse, coz mine has the wheel for third button.. it is a five buttons with te wheel acting as a third button... pheww...

No problem. Mine is a 5 button wheel mouse as well. The wheel acts as the middle button and the two spare buttons I have linked to custom menus.

I might get the dvd for starter.. any recommendations regarding DVD's or books...

Anything by 3Dtutorial.com . Fantastic value and everything from beginner tutorials to very advanced charcter rigging. My advice would be to go with "XSI Quick Start" and "Advanced Rendertree" it's actually basic rendertree, but a good start. If you are into character rigging, wait until you are fairly comfotable with XSI, then get the Advanced Character Rigging set, some really amazing techniques in there.
Also head on over to XSIbase.com and look in the gallery sections, a lot of people post rendertree screen grabs which can be very educational to reverse engineer.

I found the LW -> XSI transition relatively painless, a lot easier than the LW -> MAX transition. When I first opened XSI I nearly fell off my seat with how complicated it looked , but after a couple weeks I was relatively production savvy (as much as I needed), and after a few months I stopped opening up LW.

[Thomas An.]

wow, he seems a very confused and tangled individual... his mesh is indecipherable.

I am not sure I have any suggestions (the image most likely looks just as you envisioned it).

Here is a title: ..... "Gordian"

With all this thin metallic intricacy, I bet this is a Maxwell multi micro-caustic riot of a render

[Hervé]

well Mihai and Yog, thanks a lot for your precious advice !

I also have here a LW to XSI quickstart that looks pretty good. I thought the XSI community was not cool, because some LWer's (I won't say any names, but they recognize themselves if they read this..) were saying how bad the XSI comunity was, and if you asked a question, they make fun of you... well you guys proved me the opposite !!!

Yog it cool if I can map other keys to the 2 other buttons . I'll check the sites you mentionned. It doe not look too complicated, but I guess pretty big... many windows ( how many panels you guys would say got XSI..?)

Mihai thanks for your nice explanation.. I think I'll be confortable in supra mode... he he.. and you're right, some are redundant... no prob.

Thanks again...!
Hervé

[Mihai]

With all this thin metallic intricacy, I bet this is a Maxwell multi micro-caustic riot of a render

I think I forgot to turn on caustics for this.....craaaap
will have to re-render it.

[Mihai]

Update 18/6, more images soon.....

[Thomas An.]

Very conceptual !
Very mysterious.

I like

[daros]

Very good images Mihai!

[GM5]

The hands are awesome. It's great to see something different. Well done!

-Greg

[tom]

masterpiece!!!

[iker]

Incredible set!

[Jun In Gi]

Wow..excellent!

[Micha]

Gratulation. The hands image is great.