Simon Florimond

Normal Maps for XNA with Ultimapper

Simon Florimond — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:43:12 +0000

Please note that support for Softimage Mod Tool for XNA has been discontinued.

I have uploaded a new video, showing the steps needed to generate a tangent space normal map with Ultimapper, and make it work with the HLSL effects supplied with the XNA add-on for Softimage.

When I was doing a test with Ultimapper and the XNA add-on effects, I faced some problems with the lighting computation due to the red and green components that seemed to be reversed, relatively to the tangent and binormal passed from the vertex shader to the pixel shader. In this video, I have decided to simply invert the tangent and the binormal in the vertex shader. Actually there are other ways to fix this issue: manually inverting the red and green components in a graphics software, or doing it in the pixel shader when the normal map is sampled. Reversing the components in the xsi_defaultvs.hlsl file means that all the effects based on this file will support the normal maps generated with Ultimapper.

New Avatar Animation Rig (WIP)

Simon Florimond — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:24:43 +0000

Currently I’m working on a new XNA avatar animation rig for Softimage. I’m planning to release it as an add-on for Autodesk Softimage 2010 and Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool 7.5. The add-on will include the rig, a script to export the avatar animation based on a custom file format (needed to support expressions) and a game sample with the custom importer and processor.

Training Resources for Softimage Users

Simon Florimond — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:40:12 +0000

Here is a list of training material for Softimage. The majority of these tutorials is compatible with Softimage Mod Tool, but some of them require a professional version of Softimage and additional softwares.

i3D Tutorials

Free Softimage|XSI Tutorials

These tutorials are a good introduction to Softimage. It will help every beginner to quickly understand the core features of the software.

Softimage|XSI Tutorials

Softimage Production Series

A subset of the Softimage Production Series DVDs has been published on The Area. These tutorials are free.

Modeling & Texturing in Softimage|XSI

Selection

Manipulation

Components

General Modeling

Modifiers and Deforms

Surface and Curves

Object Tools

Materials and Textures

Texture and Layer Editor

Animation for Production with Softimage|XSI

Animation Structures

Transformations

Digital Tutors

Digital Tutors have released several training materials for Softimage. They have published a good tutorial that covers the Softimage-XNA pipeline. You need a membership to have access to the tutorials, but the Artist’s Guide to Softimage is free.

The Gnomon Workshop

The Gnomon Workshop has a great collection of professional training. The following tutorials are more oriented toward character design and require the complete version of Softimage, plus additional softwares, like Photoshop or ZBrush.

cmiVFX

For people who are interested in learning to work with ICE, cmiVFX has published two lessons that cover the new Interactive Creative Environment.

Softimage Crosswalk Pipeline for XNA – First Steps with HLSL Effects

Simon Florimond — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Please note that support for Softimage Mod Tool for XNA has been discontinued.

I have uploaded a new video, in three parts, explaining how to use the HLSL effects supplied with the Softimage XNA add-on. This video covers the setup of the game assets, the Standard Annotations and Semantics bindings with the XSISASContainer class and some HLSL code editing for adding a self-shadowing term to the illumination model.

Softimage Crosswalk Pipeline for XNA – First Steps with BasicEffect

Simon Florimond — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Please note that support for Softimage Mod Tool for XNA has been discontinued.

I have made a new video showing how to quickly start using the Crosswalk dotXSI format with Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 and XNA Game Studio 3.1. It does not cover the use of HLSL effects and SAS bindings.

Softimage FBX Exporter for XNA – Basic Workflow (Good UVs, Bad Normals)

Simon Florimond — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:38:00 +0000

Please note that support for Softimage Mod Tool for XNA has been discontinued.

These are the steps needed to export the UVs from Softimage towards XNA with the FBX format. There is still a normal issue with Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 and Crosswalk 3.3.