Format

Import

Export

Description

3DS (*.3ds)

Yes

No

Autodesk 3DS file format. See Importing 3DS Files.

See Importing and Exporting dotXSI Files for the newer Crosswalk for Max workflow.

AAF/MXF

No

Yes

MXF (Material Exchange Format) is an industry-standard container format that encapsulates media and production metadata into a single file. MXF media files are not directly seen by users but instead are referenced by AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) master clips and managed by an Avid editing application. See AAF/MXF Considerations.

ActorX (*.psk/*.psa)

No

Yes

Designed for use with the Unreal game engine the ActorX plug-in is designed to export skeletal meshes and their animations as .psk and .psa files respectively. These files can then be imported by the Unreal Editor.

The ActorX exporter is not part of XSI’s default import/export options. To use it, you must download and install the Unreal Engine Mod Tool Add-On from softimage.com.

For more information about the ActorX plug-in, visit the Unreal developer website at udn.epicgames.com

AI (*.ai)

Yes

No

Curves saved as AI (Adobe Illustrator) files to be used for creating 3D text. See Importing EPS Files in the Surface and Curve Modeling guide.

AIFF/AIF (*.aiff/*.aif)

Yes

No

Audio Interchange File Format. Import audio as a reference when animating using the animation mixer. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

AIFC (*.aifc)

Yes

No

Audio Interchange Format—Compressed. Import audio as a reference when animating using the animation mixer. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

AMC (*.amc)

Yes

No

Import motion capture files in Acclaim (*.amc and *.asf) formats. See Importing Motion Capture Files in the Character Animation guide.

ANI (*.ani)

Yes

No

Actions from SOFTIMAGE|3D animation files. See Importing and Exporting Action Sources in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

ASF (*.asf)

Yes

No

Import motion capture files in Acclaim (*.amc and *.asf) formats. See Importing Motion Capture Files in the Character Animation guide.

AVI (*.avi)

Yes

Yes

Import (load) an AVI with audio into the animation mixer. Only the sound is loaded and you can use it to adjust the timing of your animation. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

Export (output) rendered image sequences in the AVI (Audio Video Interleave) format. See Creating Movie Files (Windows Only) in the Rendering guide.

BVH (*.bvh)

Yes

No

Import motion capture files in the Biovision (*.bvh) format. See Importing Motion Capture Files in the Character Animation guide.

COLLADA (*.dae)

Yes

Yes

Import and export scenes saved in the COLLADA file format (*.dae). See Importing and Exporting COLLADA Files.

CgFX (*.cgfx)

Yes

No

XSI can load nVIDIA’s CgFX files (*.cgfx) from the CgFX realtime shader. CgFX files can be dragged and dropped onto objects and clusters and automatically generate property pages based on their content. The shader supports external file referencing as well as inlined code compilation for rapid prototyping.

DDS (*.dds)

Yes

No

Import (load) the DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) file format as an image clip. Note that cubic surfaces are tiled horizontally when loaded.

For more information about the DirectX file format, consult the DirectX SDK documentation on MSDN Library website at msdn.microsoft.com/library/

DirectX (*.x)

Yes

Yes

Import and export scenes saved in the DirectX format (*.x) which can contain data about meshes, textures, animation and so on. See Importing and Exporting DirectX Files.

For more information about the DirectX file format, consult the DirectX SDK documentation on MSDN Library website at msdn.microsoft.com/library/

DSC (*.dsc)

Yes

No

SOFTIMAGE|3D file format that contains information about a scene’s hierarchies, camera, lights, animation, and geometry. See Importing SOFTIMAGE|3D Scenes and Models.

DXFX (*.fx)

Yes

No

XSI can load DirectX Effects files (*.fx) from the DXFX realtime shader. DirectX effects are high-level programs that allow you to combine a number of multi-pass vertex and pixel shading effects in a single file to produce sophisticated realtime-shading effects.

For information about using .fx files in the render tree, see Effects Shaders in the Realtime Shaders guide.

For more information about Effects and/or the DXFX file format, consult the DirectX SDK documentation on MSDN Library website at msdn.microsoft.com/library/

EANI (*.eani)

Yes

Yes

Import and export external action sources saved in the native XSI binary format (*.eani). See Importing and Exporting Action Sources of the Nonlinear Animation guide.

EMDL (*.emdl)

Yes

Yes

File format used to import and export XSI models. See Importing and Exporting XSI Models.

EPS (*.eps)

Yes

No

Curves saved as EPS (encapsulated PostScript) files to be used for creating 3D text. See Importing EPS Files in the Surface and Curve Modeling guide.

EXP (*.exp)

Yes

No

You cannot open a binary .exp format expression file from SOFTIMAGE|3D directly. Instead, you import a scene or model with the expression in it. See Importing Expressions from SOFTIMAGE|3D in the Animation guide.

EXP2 (*.exp2)

Yes

Yes

XSI expressions can be imported (loaded) and exported (saved) as .exp2 files. See Saving and Loading Expressions in the Animation guide.

FBX (*.fbx)

Yes

Yes

Crosswalk: The XSI FBX plug-in allows you to import, export, and merge-back scene data using the FBX (*.fbx) file format. See Importing and Exporting FBX Files.

FRAW (*.fraw)

Yes

Yes

SOFTIMAGE|3D function curves can be imported (loaded) and exported (saved) as .fraw files. See Saving and Loading Function Curves in the Animation guide.

FRAW2 (*.fraw2)

Yes

Yes

XSI function curves can be imported (loaded) and exported (saved) as .fraw2 files. See Saving and Loading Function Curves in the Animation guide.

FXS (*.fxs)

No

Yes

Export Point Oven Messiah Scene files through the MDD Baker plug-in. See Importing and Exporting Point Oven MDD Files.

HRC (*.hrc)

Yes

No

SOFTIMAGE|3D file format that contains information about a scene’s objects and object hierarchies (known as SI3D models). See Importing SOFTIMAGE|3D Scenes and Models.

IGES (*.igs)

Yes

Yes

ANSI graphics file format for wireframe model interchange. See Importing and Exporting IGES Files.

KEY (*.key)

Yes

No

SOFTIMAGE|3D keys (static poses) files. See Importing and Exporting Action Sources in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

LWO (*.lwo)

Yes

Yes

Import (load) and export (save) Point Oven Lightwave Object files. See Importing and Exporting Point Oven LWO Files.

LWS (*.lws)

No

Yes

Export Point Oven Lightwave Scene files through the MDD Baker plug-in. See Importing and Exporting Point Oven MDD Files.

MDD (*.mdd)

Yes

Yes

Import (Reader) and export (Baker) Point Oven MDD files. See Importing and Exporting Point Oven MDD Files.

MI2 (*.mi)

No

Yes

You can export a scene to the mental images MI2 file format that can be read by the mental ray rendering software. For more information on mental ray rendering, See Exporting to MI2 Files in the Rendering guide.

MOV (*.mov)

Yes

Yes

Import (load) an Apple® QuickTime MOV with audio into the animation mixer. Only the sound is loaded and you can use it to adjust the timing of your animation. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

Export (output) rendered image sequences in the MOV format. See Creating Movie Files (Windows Only) in the Rendering guide.

OBJ (*.obj)

Yes

Yes

Wavefront Object file format. See Importing and Exporting Wavefront OBJ Files.

PRESET (*.preset)

Yes

Yes

Edit properties in a property editor and save your settings as a preset. Presets are simple data files with a .preset file extension that contain property information. Presets allow you to transport information between scenes. See Creating Presets of Property Settings in the Scene Elements guide.

PSC (*.psc)

Yes

Yes

Import and export the native Point Oven Scene file format. See Importing and Exporting With Point Oven.

PSD (*.psd)

Yes

No

Import Adobe Photoshop PSD image files as image clip and source pairs. Modifications to the PSD file in Photoshop are reflected in XSI. See Loading (Creating) Sources and Clips in the Texturing guide.

In the Fx Tree, you can import and export PSD files using the File Input operator and the File Output operator respectively. See Setting File Input Properties and Rendering Effects to File in the Compositing and Effects guide.

PTP (*.ptp)

Yes

Yes

Cached simulation files. PTP files record the position and physical properties of each particle in the stream. The file sequence is written back each time you modify any parameter affecting the simulation. See Playing Particle-based Simulations in the Particles guide.

QT (*.qt)

Yes

No

Import (load) an Apple® QuickTime QT with audio into the animation mixer. Only the sound is loaded and you can use it to adjust the timing of your animation. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

RTF (*.rtf)

Yes

Yes

Text can be imported and exported (saved) as an RTF (Rich Text Format) file. See Importing RTF Files and Saving RTF Files in the Modeling and Deformation Basics guide.

SCN (*.scn)

Yes

Yes

XSI scene file description uses binary code to efficiently store information about objects, textures, and animation. See Scenes in the Data Management guide.

SCNTOC (*.scntoc)

Yes

Yes

XSI scene table of contents is an XML-based file that contains scene information. It has an extension of .scntoc with the same name and in the same folder as the corresponding scene file. The scene TOC can be opened and edited with any text editor or XML editor. See Getting and Setting Scene Data with the Scene TOC in the Data Management guide.

WAV (*.wav)

Yes

No

Import (load) a Windows Waveform WAV with audio into the animation mixer. Only the sound is loaded and you can use it to adjust the timing of your animation. See Audio and Animation in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

XSI or dotXSI (*.xsi)

Yes

Yes

Crosswalk: Import and export an object, multiple–selected objects, or an entire scene in a single dotXSI (*.xsi) v.5 or v.6 file. See Using Crosswalk for XSI.

dotXSI v.3, v.3.5, v.3.6: Import and export an object, multiple–selected objects, or an entire scene in a single dotXSI (*.xsi) file. See Importing and Exporting dotXSI Files.

Specialized scene data: Scene data can be stored externally using the dotXSI format.

• Model referencing supports the dotXSI file format. See Using Referenced Models.

• Material libraries can be stored externally. See Importing and Exporting Material Libraries in the Material and Shader Basics guide.

• Action sources can be stored externally. See Importing and Exporting Action Sources in the Nonlinear Animation guide.

XSIMIXER (*.xsimixer)

Yes

Yes

Import and export the entire animation mixer for a model, making it easy to share animation between models. See Importing and Exporting the Animation Mixer in the Nonlinear Animation guide.