Just FYI..
You can model a ship for sins in ANY modeling program you want to use. However to finish the model off, and export to "dotxsi", the format required buy convertxsi in the the forge tool set to convert to sins mesh format. You MUST use XSI. Version 6.0, and up should be no problem. I dont know about versions under 6.0. Mod Tool works but i have had issues with conversion using mod tool (mesh errors).
The things that a model needs for conversion to sins is its materials set up in XSI in accordance with the forge tool documentation (-cl, -da, and -nm texture in proper links). With Phong glossiness set to 32. Tangents need to be done in XSI as well or your model will look like crap in game. Tangents are similar to "smoothing groups" in 3d studio max. The method is to create a duplicate set of UV's in XSI and remap them to where when you view a model in "constant" mode. The colors blend in. This is also explained in the forge tool documentation. You can do similar settings for phong in 3dsmax or blender easily however when you import to XSI those settings may be lost. Along with your smoothing groups.
Regardless of all things you need XSI to convert the model to dotxsi format. Using other file format converters like deep exploration, or exporting from another modeling program to dotxsi will NOT work.
