Who uses XSI Mod Tool the way it was intended?  Do you setup all of your scenes, animations, lightning, EVERYTHING in XSI?

The artist Im working with is almost insisting on this, but I seem to be getting better results converting everything he gives me in .xsi to .fbx. 

I am having issues with Mod Tool where it crashes often, seems to be several conditions that crash me.



One reason I want to stick with .fbx is for multi 3d modeling software support between artists.

Am I alone in getting frustrated by trying to stick with the XSI way?

What do I have to lose by not sticking with .xsi format except for ease of scene layout for artist?

I can layout scenes in code, so why worry right? 

Is all of the data wrapped in .xsi lost for animations or anything else embedded into a .xsi when I convert to .fbx?

Thank you for any and all opinions and help!

.XSI contains what you need to run it in XNA. Scene layouts should be preserved, but animation might already be baked down. In general, it's good to keep both the source and the intermediate material (the native .SCN file would be the source in the case, and the .XSI would be the intermediate). Depending on what the artist intends to do, he might be more comfortable doing all the setup directly in the DCC. However, your artist should be able to handle you just .XSI files.

Also, if you have suggestions on how to improve the Modtool so it's more useful for you, please let me know.

 

I have decided to get away from XSI and Mod Tool for the most part.  I am simply changing everything our artist has to .fbx and hard coding all of the layouts.  Mod Tool crashes on my system every 10-15 min, I have not been able to resolve it, and I have lost so many hours to it, its over.