Anyone played with it? Looks very powerful for the money (under $500.) Cloth, soft-body dynamics, good character rigging, good render engine... Can it import Poser content? Character rigging better than Poser? Impression of render quality and speed? Ease of use? I signed up for the trial download, but haven't been successful yet. 125 MB over dial-up is a matter of luck and patience. ;)

I've been an XSI user for a while (coming from 3dsmax). >Can it import Poser content? pCharacter Import >Character rigging better than Poser? The rig is more flexible than Poser and the animation tools are in another league. >Impression of render quality and speed? It uses mental ray so the render quality is excellent, but there is definately is a learning curve. Speed depends on your processor's speed. >ease of use It's a complex application so there is a learning curve. If you've used other 3D apps like max, maya, or lightwave then it's easy to learn. -Mark

Thanks for the info. With the poser content, was wondering about stuff besides characters too. One of the major advantages to Poser is the amount of free/inexpensive content out there. If it was brought into poser and exported as an .obj file, assume you could bring it into XSI? Another limitation to the "foundation" xsi version is no strand based hair. Can it import it from other programs (like poser) though?