Interoperability between

Softimage®|XSI® and Avid®|DS

Using XSI to Set Up Render Passes to be Composited in Avid|DS

Softimage|XSI v3.0 lets you transfer an XSI FX Tree to an Avid|DS v6.02 system and
finish the composite using the AAF Export Tool.

Note: The AAF Export Tool add-on is available only on Microsoft Windows platforms.

In XSI, you simply have to create the render passes as well as an FX Tree to composite
these passes. Then export the FX Tree to Avid|DS where it is integrated for the final
composite. At any time throughout the post-production process, you can update the
render passes in XSI and transfer them to Avid|DS where the work can continue with the
latest version of the render passes.

The Workflow
1. In XSI, work on the 3D model, generate the first render passes, and composite
them in an FX Tree.
2. Using the AAF Export Tool add-on in XSI, export the FX Tree (and the render
passes it contains) to an AAF file. While doing so, you can also generate the
Avid|DS media files associated with each of the render passes.
3. In Avid|DS, conform the XSI AAF into an Avid|DS sequence (refer to the
Avid|DS documentation for details on how an AAF file can be conformed).
The XSI FX Tree conforms as an Avid|DS Effects Tree.
4. In Avid|DS, link to the media files generated by the AAF Export Tool. Do this by
configuring the Media Indexer to point to the folder where these media files are
stored.

To allow continuous updates of render passes:

At any time during the post-production process, you can use the AAF Export Tool to
generate new versions of the Avid|DS media files. If these files are generated in the
folder currently indexed by Avid|DS, the previous versions of the Avid|DS media files
are “occluded” by the new files; that is, Avid|DS starts using the new files as soon as they
are available.

To keep previous versions of the render passes accessible to Avid|DS:

You can keep each version of the render passes to compare the work that has been done
between versions. To do so, just generate the Avid|DS media files in different folders
each time you use the AAF Export Tool (i.e. a new folder for each version). In Avid|DS,
you just point the Media Indexer to the folder of the desired version.

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Notes

• Each render pass that is part of the XSI FX Tree is conformed as a master clip in
Avid|DS. This means that in Avid|DS, you can purge and recapture the master
clip. When recapturing, Avid|DS tries to find the original media files created by
XSI when the associated render pass was rendered. This is why it is important to
put the media files on a file server where Avid|DS can access them, and not on a
local disk.
• A render pass that is part of an XSI tree, but is not connected to any other nodes
in that FX Tree, is still put in the AAF file and ultimately makes its way to
Avid|DS as a master clip. This allows you to easily transfer any render pass from
XSI to Avid|DS, even if it does not contribute to the final XSI FX Tree output.
• If the AAF Export Tool is called multiple times without regenerating the render
passes, the tool does not regenerate the Avid|DS media files after the first call.
This is an optimization designed to minimize the time and disk space required
when transferring Avid|DS media files between XSI and Avid|DS.
This is how it works: Before generating a new Avid|DS media file, the AAF
Export Tool checks if the previously generated Avid|DS media file is older than
all the media files created when the pass was rendered. In this case, the tool
assumes the Avid|DS media file is up-to-date and does not regenerate it. If you
want to benefit from this optimization, you should always generate the Avid|DS
media files in the same folder (the AAF Export Tool will only search for
previously generated Avid|DS media files in the folder where it is generating the
media files).
• The link between an XSI render pass and its associated Avid|DS master clip is
based on the location of the media files created when the pass was rendered.
Changing the location of these files will break the link between the XSI render
pass and the Avid|DS master clip. To avoid problems with linking, don’t change
the location of the passes’ rendered media files during the post-production
process.
• To get rid of previous versions of Avid|DS media files occluded by new versions
of the same media, you must use the Purge function in Avid|DS (refer to the
Avid|DS documentation for details on how to use this function).

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Installing the AAF Export Tool

When you install the AAF Export Tool on an XSI v3.0 system, make sure the files
contained in the zip don't overwrite the XSI bin files located in the XSI folder.

1. Unzip the file in the bin folder so that every file is in bin\aaf.

The zip file will create the aaf folder automatically. Depending on the tool you
use to unzip the file, you should enable “use folders” and select
xsi/application/bin as the folder in which to store the files. If you are
prompted to overwrite, this means that the unzip location is incorrect. You
must stop the process and restart the unzip with the proper location. If you use
winzip or winrar, you can put the zip file directly in the bin folder, then right-
click and choose Extract Here. This will automatically create the aaf folder for
you.
2. Log in as a user with admin access. If you are not logged in as such, the
registration process will fail.
3. When the unzip process is complete, run the script bin\aaf\install.bat.

Uninstalling the AAF Export Tool

If you need to uninstall the AAF Export Tool at any time, follow these steps:
1. Log in as a user with admin access and run the script bin\aaf\uninstall.bat.
2. Delete the bin/aaf folder.

Using the AAF Export Tool

1. In XSI, build an FX Tree using the following nodes: file in, file out, and over
(the AAF Export tool supports only those nodes).
2. From the main menu bar, choose View > Custom Toolbar > AAF_Export.
3. Click on the AAF_export button or type the script command aaf_export in
the script command box at the bottom of the XSI window.
4. In the dialog box that is displayed, specify the settings on the Export Settings
page as shown below.

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Export Settings
dotXSI file Path of the .xsi file to be generated. This file contains
the FX Tree. Note: Only file in, file out, and over nodes
are supported in this version.
AAF File Name of the AAF file to generate.
Output directory Directory where the Avid|DS media files will be
written.
Media (Optional) Generate Avid|DS media (GEN) files.
Resolution Image resolution.
Aspect Ratio Image aspect ratio.
Frames per second AAF frame rate.
Field Dominance Odd or even field dominance.
Color space Non-standard formats must be generated using the
RGB color space

Media Settings
Custom Settings Click this button to specify non-standard image settings
(such as resolution, frame rate, and aspect ratio). Note:
Custom resolution media cannot be played in realtime
in Avid|DS.

The other buttons on this page allow you to specify

standard media formats that can be played in real time
in Avid|DS.

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 5. Click OK to save these settings.

A DOS window appears showing the conversion progress. If there are errors during the
conversion process, this window will inform you of them.

Limitations
These are the current limitations of the XSI to Avid|DS workflow:
• Only the over, file in, and file out nodes of the XSI FX Tree are imported in
Avid|DS. Other nodes in the FX Tree are conformed in Avid|DS as “Unknown”
effects. In Avid|DS, this allows you to see which nodes were part of the tree and
the connections to these nodes. You can, however, see the entire structure of the
XSI FX Tree even if all the effects are not recognized.
• There is no automatic merge of FX Trees. Therefore, if the XSI FX Tree changes
during the post-production process, the new tree is conformed in the Avid|DS
project as a new FX Tree. The FX Tree is not merged with the previous version of
the FX Tree conformed in the same Avid|DS sequence. This is why the XSI FX
Tree needs to be final before you can work on it in Avid|DS.
• In XSI, you should not use GEN files in the FileOutput node of the XSI FX Tree.
• In Avid|DS, it is always assumed that sources are premultiplied even if they have
been un-premultiplied in the FileInput node of the XSI FX Tree. To fix the result,
after conforming in Avid|DS, you should connect an “unpremultiply” filter node
to the source nodes of the final Avid|DS Effects Tree.
• For a sequence of stills associated to the FileOutput node to be correctly
conformed, the path expression must be set to an absolute path.
• When using custom resolutions in RGB color space, the alpha channel is not used
when the AAF Export Tool generates the Avid|DS media files.
• There can be only one FX Tree in an XSI scene. If more than one FX Tree is in a
scene, only one of them is exported to the AAF file.