The Foundry is set to announce MARI a new product originally developed by the R&D and texture departments at Weta Digital. The application is strictly a texture painting tool, and from the initial information sounds amazing just in interactivity alone. Read more on FxGuide.

Mari’s benifits include:

Speed
Save time and money by seeing the results of your work immediately. Cut down on revisions. Wave goodbye to the paint, render, review, rinse, repeat cycle of old. Load all the textures for a model into Mari simultaneously and remove the need to split models up.

Paint
A creative painting toolset second to none, focused on the artists’ needs. With a paintbrush engine finessed under intense production pressure, Mari releases artists from arbitrary restraints and allows them to work naturally with the model.

Context
In VFX work, context is everything. What the model will look like in motion, from multiple angles and against the background plate, is critical. Mari lets the artists see the model in context and paint on it right there.

Animation
Texture channels need to change over time. Whether it is a blushing maiden or scratched and dented armour, animating textures are a crucial part of what makes a model appear real. Mari let’s you animate and paint your texture channels frame by frame.

Workflow
Efficient integration into a complex workflow turns a great product into a powerhouse. Mari has an open and extensible approach to UI, geometry, cameras and shading, and runs on Linux. It supports colour management, light and texture exchange, while import and export happen in the background.

User Interface
A clear and intuitive user interface allows artists to focus on what is important. User configurable tool shelves allow them to organise their workspace efficiently and a customizable real-time 3D shader lets them see what they’re doing.

Meaning
Mari comes from the Swahili Maridadi meaning both ‘beautiful’ and also carrying connotations of ‘usefulness’.

The Foundry have also announced that they will be at NAB showing two brand new high-end plug-in tools for After Effects which take advantage of the 64-bit capabilities offered by CS5, as well as build on a new GPU ‘Blink’ technology the Foundry has been developing. Listen to the FXGuide podcast here.