Mari, l’application de texture painting 3D de The Foundry, passe en version 1.3 ! Annoncée lors du NAB, cette mise à jour apporte des avancées significatives telles qu’un aperçu dynamique du displacement, le support complet de PTex. La fin des UV n’a jamais été aussi proche…
Rappelons enfin, pour ceux qui voudraient en savoir plus, que nous vous avions proposé en janvier une interview en compagnie du product manager du logiciel, ce qui était l’occasion de présenter en profondeur Mari.
Vous pourrez par ailleurs trouver Mari dans la boutique 3DVF.fr.
Voici l’annonce complète :
London, 31 May, 2011 – Leading visual effects software developer, The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk), today announced the latest version of its creative paint and texture tool – MARI 1.3.
Now shipping, MARI 1.3 is loaded with new features including: Displacement Preview, Ptex Per-Face Texture Mapping, Snapshots, Tiled Textures, and Environment Mapping. MARI 1.3 delivers on the aggressive development roadmap set for 2011 with further features to facilitate an artist friendly NUKE <> MARI bridge set to release later this summer, providing intuitive workflow and quality paint tools to fix common texture projection challenges faced often in compositing, including seaming, stretching and occlusion.
MARI 1.3 has been put through its paces in a number of leading studios and facilities with pre-release versions already in use by leading visual effects studios.
MARI Product Manager, Jack Greasley, said, MARI is already an established and trusted tool for high-end visual effects, but we recognize the industry is continually looking for innovations that will increase quality and efficiency. This is why we’ve stepped up to deliver artists a simple yet powerful tool with flexibility and convenience in mind. Bottom line MARI 1.3 is going to dramatically change their workflow for the better.
Junior Technical Director, Jesse Flores, Framestore said,
Ptex frees you from the tyranny of UVs and allows you continue down the pipeline
without them. It gives the artists great freedom over their textures, giving them the
resolution where they need it down to the decisions on individual geometry faces.
In the coming years we’ll see more and more VFX studio’s adapting this
cutting-edge technology. The Foundry has realized that it makes sense to support
Ptex now, much to the delight of the industry. It makes our lives as texture artists easier.
CG Supervisor and Production Lead, Brandon Fayette, Bad Robot adds, MARI has single handedly changed the way we handle texture and matte painting pipelines more so than other tools for high-end VFX. Using the toolset given to us in MARI, we can effectively speed up our workflow exponentially. MARI equals one thing: speed. MARI gives one thing: quality. All you need now is imagination.
Highlights include:
Displacement Preview – Displacement is a technique for adding detail to the surface of an object by pushing and pulling the surface based on an imported or painted texture map. By using the combined power of modern GPU technology and MARI’s world leading texture handling system, almost infinite amounts of displacement detail can be displayed in real-time, allowing artists to see how the final result will appear, direct in the interactive viewport.
Ptex - Last year Walt Disney Feature Animation introduced the Ptex per-face texture
format. This technology allows users to paint and render models without having to
define a UV map by allocated individual textures to geometry faces. Creating UVs to
explicitly map texture coordinates is a frustrating experience. MARI now fully supports
a Ptex workflow. Users can load models without UVs, paint using the full set of MARI
tools, and export to .ptx files. Our Ptex integration is built on MARI’s world-class data
and rendering engine and draws directly from Walt Disney Animation Studios paint technology following a ground-breaking
agreement with The Foundry in 2010.
Snapshots – As assets go through more and more versions, keeping a handle on changes takes time and leaves assets open to mistakes. Snapshots give unprecedented flexibility for artists to play with new ideas and to deal with change and variation.
Tiled Textures – MARI’s live tiled texture system allows quick and easy coverage of large surfaces without compromising control.
Environment Mapping – Environment mapping is a way of simulating a shiny, reflective surface. Artists can work with a 3D viewport that more accurately represents the final look of their rendered images.
