Xoliul Shader for Softimage 1.6 alpha

This shader is provided as is ( no support )

Tested with XSI 7.01 ,softimage mod tool .

Does NOT work with Softimage 2011 



Usage information.

1.Drag and drop the xoliul xsi.fx file onto a model in the viewport .
2.with the model selected ,open the rendertree (press 7) .
3.You should see a noicon_pic connected to all the slots in the xoliul shader
4.drag an image node in from the left hand side (Nodes>texture>image)
5. double click this node this should open its properties.
6.Click New>New from File and load in a texture.
7.Drag a connecting line from the blue dot on the loaded texture node (NOT from the image node) to a port in the xoliul shader.
8.Connecting from the image node will result in an error(it will use noicon_pic)
9.to load another texture just repeat step 5
10. you need to apply a tangent and a binormal propery for the normal mapping to work
10. Set the Display to directx 9 mode
10. Have fun!


Everything works apart from a couple of things.Firstly it only uses 1 uv set .Having more than 1 uv set can break the shader.
The IBL cube blur does not work..the guy who did the conversion didn't know much about XSI and so had to comment out the mip level selection which this slider links to....workaround is to manually create a blurred version of a cubemap with cubemap gen .

Ive tested this shader for about a week and in my honest opinion it displays better than the 3dsMax version as the normals in max are a bit screwy even if you do the qualified normals hack in the ini file....which only seem to work if you only view the model with normals only without diffuse.
Also as an added bonus with XSI is the ability to modify the maps before they are piped into the shader so you can colour tint /blur etc for extra fine teaking.
Sometimes the shader will go black .If this happens select it and open the texture editor ..that usually fixes it.
Also Ive found that if you use multi layered transparencies and they are knocking out each other/disappearing etc .Save your file and merge it into a fresh scene...this seamed to work for me.

As I have said we will not be updating this shader so if anyone with any shader coding experience wants to fix the 2 bugs and maybe add some extra features (i.e normal strength slider .paralax mapping) by all means do so and post it up on the forum .


And please dont hassle Xoliul for anything with this version of the shader as he didn't do the conversion and has enough on his plate supporting the max and maya versions.


Anyway guys and gals .Have fun with this fantastic shader ,lets see some awesome artwork from Softimage users using it.



Manticor


