I still think Blender is the easiest. But I guess that’s just from experience. XSI is great, much easier to use than Maya. You just can’t get away with using a weak system like you can with Blender. XSI doesn’t have that many good video tutorials and DVDs though.
Huh??? I got my Fnd at the time with about 40 hours of tuts (5 dvd’s), Then there is the excellent 3dquakers and 3dtutorial website. Digital tutors have great material, and here ‘http://www.xsibase.com/tutorials/beginner.php’ is only a small part of what’s available on the XSIbase site. And there is more… don’t make me pull up my Bookmarks 
Lemo
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I have heard really bad things about both 3dquaker and 3dtutorial. Also they don’t seem to want to use DVD’s as a format but rather a tied to your system digital file. I’d like to see your bookmarks. A ton of links on Ed Harris’s site are really old and often do not work. Well the ones I want.
Have you ever visited their websites? At least Joe has the option to get all his publications on DVD. I always want it NOW, so I always download.
Yes, both tie the player to the system you play it on. But that’s not a big deal. You have the medium, and in both cases you have the license in a very short period of time. Usually instantly.
This seems to be the same kinda rumor floating around like the ATI/NVidia driver rumor. Depending which side you are on, the drivers of the other vendor are all crap hahaha.
I’ll copy my list of links together when I have a minute.
Cheers
Lemo
PS:What is easily forgotten… Joe and Charbel are one man shows. They produce the tutorials by themselves or for another single dude who is a speciailst in his realm. You can ring them up or ask questions. And that is valid from the author to the publisher. Great value. However, tutorial syles and contents are depending on the individual. What one likes, the other dreads.
XSI has been a slow learn for me, a lot of trail and error. I was using Amorphium 3. Amorphium 3 was as easy to learn as sneezing. Blender was just impossible for me.
I am not a very good modeler, but after sticking with it I can get XSI to do what I want, and it has grown on me. I still render my models in Amorphium 3 or DAZ, only becuase I have not figured out the shading, textureing and uv mapping yet.
I spoiled myself with UV Layout for UV mapping and that is another easy sneeze compared to XSI.
The more I learn in XSI the more I like it. It has a lot more tools then I know what to do with, but it is a Pro Modeler, and once you grasp it you really don’t want to go back to another.
The reason I think poeple love it so much is once you learn it your hooked. I really like modeling with it.
here is on of my XSI models http://cccharron.50webs.com/pages/csg.html
Wow, that’s a cool model! Compared to your first steps in amorphium you grew by leaps and bounds! Why don’t you bring it into ZBrush and detail it there a bit?
Cheers
Lemo 
PS:I agree… lighting rendering takes time… But here is something you will enjoy:
http://xsi.jankin.com/mad_physicalSky.zip
Download and install with the File->addon manager. Then load the sample scene, delete the spheres and import/merge your model. Maybe you have to scale it.
Then open a render region. Should look cool!. Now open the View->Toolsbars->shader presets and drag and drop something cool or strange onto your model. Render again… This should look pretty. Set the animation slider to various locations (30 or seventy e.g.) and you will see the light changing.
That’s a lighting method which will give you instant results without fiddling. From there… it all goes downhill into the manuals again. But this should give cool results!
When you have UVLayout… then you do not need the XSI UV editor. Specially since Phil’s last release with the straight edges. But look at it. It’s a handy tool to fix a seam or so.
Thanks for the comments guys! A good read.
Lemonnado: it would be great if you could post that list of bookmarks:)
personally I’ve found the XSI Documentation is good and covers alot.
Lighting is hard to figure out regardless of what application you’re using (maybe something like Maxwell is easier – I don’t know)
I probably haven’t looked hard enough but I have never really found a good “generic” CG lighting tutorial. Any suggestions?
Lighting is an art form in itself. Like texturing. I gave up on the search for the lighting bible. The best and only approach imho is to take a nice render, or photo and take that apart. Where is the light comming from , which materials are used, which post effects (glow etc.) are used. Is there depth of field etc…
Then plop it together yourself. I have not looked, but I guess the real movie light professionals must have standard books. Those should be of more interest than an explanation on how to adjust the spotlight falloff…
This has been a great introduction:
http://dvd.3dfluff.com/vol4_1.htm
Cheers
Lemo
The book Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn is also a must (it is application agnostic).
Further to 3DTutorial, the license is tied to a specific machine but one email to Joe will get you a new license if you want to transfer machines. The couple of times I have renewed licenses I’ve received replies within a matter of hours, even on the weekend.
Speaking for 3dtutorial.com, just to be clear our tutorials no longer use any type of hardware locking, they are NOT tied to a single computer, they are fully floating and can be viewed on any PC that you own without limitation.
Only 1 title currently still uses a node-locked license and I will recompie and reissue that as a fully floating series hopefully before the end of the year.
So once again, 3dtutorial.com does NOT tie it’s products to your system!
I hope this clears up any confusion.
Cheers,
Joe Saltzman
Thanks for the links. Once I get over this cold and can concentrate for more than 2 min at a time I will read them. 
The Birn book has shown up on my radar before too. I’m getting closer to taking the plunge on that one.
Hopefully soon… would love to use it on my intel mac…
They had it a Siggraph…
small_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamond:D
Augh, this is so frustrating. I just bought Zbrush, and being able to push around a million+ poly model on 1Gb of ram is great fun. But messing with zspheres is a pain. I want, I need those new tools. Instead, we’re teased for the past 2 years that 2.5 is still “Coming Soon”.
So what’s the holdup? Is it Universal Binary support? I’ve heard a rumor of 2.5 hitting in Feburary, but eh, who knows. No one is saying anything. We don’t even get a look at a beta.