The Foundry Releases MARI on Windows

Leading visual effects software company The Foundry are today releasing their brand new creative 3D texture painting technology MARI on Windows.

MARI was originally developed at Weta Digital to handle the exceedingly detailed look development and texture work demanded by Avatar. MARI copes easily with an obsessive level of detail – literally tens of thousands of textures – quickly and elegantly.

MARI has already been enthusiastically received across the world’s texture painting communities. Initially released on Linux in July, MARI has been adopted globally with a client list including Framestore, Double Negative, Method Studios, Animal Logic, and Digital Domain.

Now shipping, MARI 1.1 for Windows and MARI 1.1 for Linux add FBX Camera import, TGA support, a smart selection tool, canvas toolbar, perspective view, a normal shader and dramatically improved performance.

Matt Holben, CEO, Double Negative, said, “Development in the world of texture painting has been somewhat stilted in recent years, hence Weta’s development of MARI. We are all facing increasing demands in terms of scale and detail as new formats become the norm. MARI is what our artists have been waiting for. We have been employing it on production since alpha and are confident we are making the right move purchasing this software ‘ even pre-release.”

Method Studios’ CG Supervisor, Scott Metzger, comments “There is almost no learning curve when using MARI. I was able to place artists with no experience in the software and get fantastic results very quickly. This is something that would never have been possible with Zbrush. MARI is the only plaint texture tool I want to texture in now.”

The Foundry has seen huge interest in MARI from artists working on Windows – across a broad range of industries including Games and product design – and so the company has invested in a significant engineering effort to ensure a timely release on this platform.

The aggressive development roadmap for the product continues into 2011. Amongst other things, The Foundry will be taking advantage of the exclusive deal with Walt Disney Animation Studios, announced in July, to incorporate elements of the studio’s internally-developed Paint3D technology into MARI.

For more information, or to download a 15-day fully functioning demo license: www.thefoundry.co.uk.