dotXSI
INFO
XSI for Battlezone 2
Fishbone, Feb-22-02
This is a little information
file about the DotXSI file format. Most of the info is directly from Softimage
(thats why it sounds a bit like a sales brochure). I extracted the inportant
info for BZ2 modeller
The dotXSI File Format
The dotXSITM file
format is an ASCII file format defined by Softimage Co. to store SOFTIMAGE®|3D
and SOFTIMAGE|XSI scene data. You can use it to simplify the import and
export of characters, models, and animation for complete customizability
of any game-development pipeline. The file format lets you include user
data, making it straightforward to introduce new types of custom information.
Version 3.0 of the file format
includes support for meshes, NURBS, hierarchies, skeletons, 2D IK chains,
animation constraints, Hermite spline function curves, envelope weights
(also on NURBS surfaces), custom effects, and user data.
The dotXSI file format is optimized
for current game engine technology, and it can be easily:
-
Imported into and exported from
SOFTIMAGE|3D (v3.8 and later) and SOFTIMAGE|XSI 1.5.
-
Exported from SOFTIMAGE|3D and
SOFTIMAGE|XSI and imported into the XSI Viewer.
-
Used to exchange scene data
between SOFTIMAGE|3D and SOFTIMAGE|XSI.
-
Imported into third-party software.
-
Converted into other file formats.
-
Extended and customized to meet
any special needs.
Compatibility
The current version of SOFTIMAGE|3D
can read and write versions 1.3, 2.0, and 3.0 dotXSI files. Note, however,
that while an older version of SOFTIMAGE|3D can load more recent versions
of dotXSI files, it ignores templates that it does not recognize.
SOFTIMAGE|XSI v1.5 can read
and write v3.0 dotXSI files.
What version is Battlezone 2
using?
BZ2 is accepting XSI models
version 1.1. The pandemic plugin for MAX is saving in XSI V1.1
However, I am told that XSI
V1.3 is also working in BZ2. This means you cannot create models in SOFTIMAGE|XSI
and export them directly to BZ2. But you can in SOFTIMAGE|3D (I dont know
which version of SOFTIMAGE|3D is exporting to V1.3 but 3.8 and 3.9 have
been reported to being able to create XSI models that work in BZ2.
How to determine the XSI version
of a model?
All dotXSI files must begin
with a header. The file header indicates the file format and its revision
number.
| Field |
Size
(bytes) |
Contents |
Description |
| Magic
number |
4 |
"xsi" |
File
type |
| Version/major
number |
2 |
01 |
Major
version 1 |
| Version/minor
number |
2 |
03 |
Minor
version 3 |
| Format
type |
4 |
"txt" |
Text
file |
| |
|
"bin" |
Binary
file |
| |
|
"com" |
Compressed
file |
| Compression
type |
4 |
"lzw" |
|
| |
|
"zip" |
|
| Float
size |
4 |
0064 |
64-bit
floats |
| |
4 |
0032 |
32-bit
floats |
Examples
xsi 0103txt 0032
Reading left to right, this
indicates:
dotXSI file format.
Version 1.3.
A text file.
32-bit floating-point values.
XSI v2.0 files generated
begin with:
xsi 0200txt 0032
More info
Here is the full information
file that I found on the Softimage website: Full XSI
info