Hello, I’m planning on purchasing a new 3D program, and I’m having trouble deciding whether I should get XSI, Maya, or some other program. I’ve been using blender for a while, and now I want to move into some more professional programs. From experience, which program do you guys think is has the best pipeline with zbrush? Thanks.
-3Dean
XSI has the best bang for the buck right now. If you are a student then check out Cinema4D or Maya. You will not have a problem in getting geometry in or out with any of those apps.
Lemo
Thanks lemo.
If you’re comparing the two regarding price, XSI is cheaper…
Lightwave is cheap, how does that program rank?
In over all tools and efficiency what program would be a better buy?
Thanks,
-3Dean
…are always 
You dropt it Blender when it become more and more powerful? 
True, blender is advancing quite well, but so are these other programs, ;). I’m not dropping blender, but I do want to start using more professional programs.
Can’t speak about Lightwave as I have not had my hands on it and I don’t like repeating things I read… The best advice there is to get a demo if they have one, and check out the forums around it. If the users in forums are a bunch of suicidal whiners then you know what the product does.
I have not had good experience with sales or support of Autodesk. So I sold my Maya license a few years ago and quickly found out that I really do not need their products. That’s my personal Maya/Max story. So, no much comments there either. Probably things have changed there, so I keep it neutral.
If price is not of prime concern, then I can highly recommend Cinema4D.
Download the demo from Maxon.net and check it out. It’s not time restricted.
Also check out cineversity.com which is a maxon sponsored tutorial site. With a flat fee you can access hundreds of tutorials. They also have free ones.
Check out the C4D forum on cgtalk. The crowd equals the people here at ZBCentral.
XSI Foundation is the best bang for the buck, but when you would like to add a few features, it becomes very expensive. You will not have support with Fnd and you need to buy a new packages the next year if you wish to upgrade it… And who does not like the new particle system or what else is coming up the next release… So if you buy Fnd… think about the same amount next year. For ‘free upgrades and tech support’ you need the next level up and besides the product price of aprox. 1800$ you need to invest 800$ maintenance and support fee on top. The top of the line package costs 7000$ and the maintenance for that 1800$. (Autodesk has similar charges)
Did I mention that Maxon has a support hotline… which is free… And the updates are prices moderately.
C4D V10 is the current version. Versions before 9 are severely limited compared to todays standards. Many people recall that. But since V9 massive progress has been made. So it’s worth checking out.
Try both out, but if you would like to have dynamics, cloth and hair some time in the future, then stick with C4D even if the entry price is higher as hair and good cloth, and dynamic, will set you back 7000$ in XSI… And a FULL loaded C4D is still cheaper than that 8).
Maxon also allows you to buy packages like Hair ,Dynamics, and other packages separately. So you can build your kit the way you like it.
Cheers
Lemo
PS:Cinema 4D now comes together with BodyPaint which is a fabulous 3D paint module and UV editor. There is NOTHING out there which comes close to BodyPaint. It’s like a projection master on steroids (no picky uppy etc.) plus a fabulous set of UV tools including automatic mapping, relaxing, pelting…
XSI has a good UV editor but no paint capabilities. There is a free plugin for pelt mapping. But that’s not nearly as powerful as Bodypaint.
PPS:The blender fluids work well with C4D 
Thanks for the long reply, lemo, I appreciate it. Is the ZBrush–>Cinema4D pipeline easy? Is the UV mapping strong in it? Thanks for your time and consideration.
Just try it out. It’s not complicated. Just plop a ZBrush displacement map into the texture slot of the C4D material editor, adjust the strength and you are all set. Nothing to it. And the UV tool’s of the BodyPaint section are not matched by any other app. in it’s completeness. The coolest thing imho is the UV wizard which can take a model and slice and dice it into a UV map automatically. Like AUV or GUV map in Zbrush but with the benefit that you can drop into the UV editor and adjust parts. There is a cheap and complete Bodypaint tutorial from 3dkiwi of c4dcafe. It also contains models and other goodies. Since Version 10 Maxon decided not to split the core product into bodypaint and the modeling/animation/render app. any longer. So, now C4D covers everything. Except for high poly count modeling. And that’s where our friend Zbrush is adding all you ever need.
Cheers
Lemo
I’ve always thought of trying out Cinema4D, now I think I might after that extensive post about it… Hmmm… Good thing I plan on signing up for college courses and being a student… The joys of academic pricing when you are just trying to learn. 
Lightwave is a great program, as are many of the other packages. From personal experience, lightwave is very “complete”. You get many excellent features right out of the box. What’s more, is lightwave is going through some amazing changes right now. If you purchase 9, you get free upgrades for the entire 9.x series (9.2 in dev right now). Also, with lightwave comes the amazing community. Ultimately though, any package will do fine. Some other things to look into are specific strengths and weeknesses of each package, and to look at which package will suit your specific needs best (stills vs. animations vs. game content creation). As others have said, go and get a demo of each and try them out for yourself.
The winning package of choice should be based on your personal preferences, the community, the availability of extensions, the budget, and how well received it is in the commercial field. Never ever base it on the Galleries of the products. You can make a simple spreadsheet and fill in what you find. It’s confusing enough…
Cheers
Lemo
PS: There are MEGA cool plugins out there for C4D. Here is a good sample:
http://www.heyne-multimedia.de/c4dplugin/indexx.php?l=en
I got into serious trouble last night playing with the DRIVE plugin… :lol: