Known SDK Limitations v5.0 (XSISDK)

Once a SPDL file is installed it can be used by a user with lower priviledges. Note: Connecting to a workgroup will automatically attempt to install any SPDL files found there. Therefore workgroup based shaders or operators may appear to be broken because of this limitation.

Workaround: Give all users "power-user" or "administrator" status on their machines. Otherwise make sure that all SPDL files are explicitly installed by someone with sufficient priviledges.

OnTerminate event when using the new self-installed event code does not work. Workaround: Use the legacy Application.Advise mechanism to create terminate events

The C++ API Scene::GetActivePass does not work. The CRef that is returned is not valid so the name of the pass cannot be read from it. Workaround: Use the CComAPIHandler to call Scene.ActivePass or write a small scripting command to return the information.

Workaround: Use SIObject::GetNestedObjects to retrieve the operators connected to a Primitive.

Workaround: Use a global variable or some other mechanism to tell the selection event to do nothing, rather than relying on the offical XSI mute functionality.

Workaround: Always provide names that match XSI parameter naming conventions.

Workaround: Use XSIUIToolkit.MsgBox instead.

After a PPG.Refresh call, a "tab change" PPG Event is invoked that claims that the tab has been switched to the first tab, even if the current tab is not the first tab. The same bug occurs when changing the inspected object shown in a property page window.

Workaround: Users are recommended to pick a name that is unlike to be picked by anyone else, for example with a prefix based on the company or plugin. The same name should be used for both the command name and command script name.

Workaround: When the label is not set explicitly it is based on the name of the custom menu. Spaces can be used in that string, they will be striped out for the generation of the callback names. However there is a limitation that top level menus cannot start with a number character.

Workaround: Pick names less than 30 characters

Workaround: Write a simple script-based self-installed plugin and sort it on the workgroup. This plugin uses XSIUtils.LaunchProcess to call cmdreg.exe to register each dll file as necessary. By placing this code within the XSILoadPlugin callback it will run at startup or as soon as the workgroup is connected.

Workaround: Use a custom layout to specify which parameters are shown on the Property Page, rather than this capability.

Workaround: Do not specify a category. The resulting custom preferences will appear under the Custom node.

Workaround: Filter the returned collection to remove duplicate entries. Once possible way to do this is to use an XSICollection with the Unique property set to true.

Workaround: Get a new SDK object for the cluster after the freeze operation. A straightfoward way to do this is to remember the fullname of the cluster inside a string variable, then call GetValue or Dictionary.GetObject to retreive a new SDK object.

If the file has already been saved its path can be determined via the object model, e.g. Application.ActiveProject.ActiveScene.Filename.Value. However if the scene has never been saved the scene filename has not yet been determined at the time the callback is performed.

The MenuItem.Filter method only works for contextual based menus. Workaround: Set the menu to dynamic, so the Init method is called each time it is shown. The menu can then be rebuilt according to the current context.

FCurve.SetKeyTangents does not work in some cases. Workaround: Set the tangents using methods like FCurveKey.LeftTanY

Custom Property Wizard does not create Animated Parameters properly in Python

Workaround: Replace the " or " with " + " in the generated AddParameter2 calls.

For example: oCustomProperty.AddParameter2("Param",constants.siInt4,0,0,100,0,100,0,constants.siPersistable + constants.siAnimatable)

xsibatch -script does not support passing arguments to a Python script

Workaround: Write an intermediate jscript or vbscript script that takes the path to a python script and a list of arguments and invokes the Python script with Application.ExecuteScript

The data type returned by XSI for a color parameter in previous versions was "siUnknown" and now in v5.0 it is "siEmpty"

In previous versions, when traversing a render tree XSI would return a Texture object rather than a Shader object for shaders belonging to the "Texture" family. In XSI 5.0 a Shader object is returned. Only the Material.CurrentTexture API returns a Texture.

The "signature" for X3DModel.AddModel changed from IDispatch*,BSTR to VARIANT,VARIANT. This breaks backward compatibility for COM API plugins that call that methods. It has not affect on C++ API and Scripting. This was done to improve JScript support.

ValueType changed for Color Parameters. Before XSI 5.0, calling from scripting or from C++ API would return siUnknown/VT_UNKNOWN,i.e. Parameter::GetValueType() or ValueType (Parameter). Now in XSI 5.0, no SDK call returns this useless value. Instead it will return siEmpty/VT_EMPTY. We suggest 2 workarounds to ensure backword compatibility. 1) check for both return value of siUnknown or siEmpty. 2) You can also test whether Parameter.Type is "CompoundType". Then see if the sub-parameters "red", "green", "blue" and/or "alpha" exist.