Here are some steps I usually take to try and increase rig performance:
1- In the interaction options there is a toggle that limits XSI's playback speed to the current framerate. Turn this off. I find that when XSI's playback is speed governed, it tends to go a little slower than whatever the framerate is set to anyway.
2- Make sure that any operators that may still be live and can be frozen are frozen. Pay close attention to any envelope weight modifier and weight paint operators, which folks tend to forget about because they are hidden inside the envelope weight cluster.
3- Tune your rig performance:
-When the speed limiting option is off, and with nothing in your scene, you should be able to get about 70-120 fps playback speed.
-I usually turn on the animation loop and solo my camera window where I turn on the show framerate option. The addition of each new rigging component will slow down XSI's framerate, so I use this to measure the speed impact of varying techniques.
-100 animated IK chains will slow you down to 40 fps or so. 100 direction constraints on nulls will slow you down to 60 fps or so. Therefore, it would be better to use direction constraints than single bone IK chains wherever possible.
-Pose constraints have slightly less impact than orientation constraints. Since you can get a pose constraint to affect only orientation by turning off position and scaling in the options, do that instead. This won't matter in numbers less than 40 or 50, but for a large complex rig, the constraint count adds up.
-Make sure to hide each and every node you do not intend to use as an animation control or for deformation feedback. I can't tell you how many rigs I look at that are a complete mess with regards to visibility and control setups. XSI does not expend any proc power on nodes that are hidden, so make sure all those chain roots, effects, expression nulls, and extraneous components are hidden, which should increase rig performance substantially. I always have a group on my rig called "HIDDEN" where I throw everything but the animation controls and geometry.
-Keep those OpenGL poly subdee levels at 0. It's too easy to hit that little plus button and forget that not too long ago, live subdees weren't even an option.
-Brad
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