New Mari Extension Pack Packs a Punch

Mari Extension Pack 6 R2 introduces new features and improvements, such as Selection Group Filtering and Combing, a Complex IOR Node, a new Node Editor, a powerful Ramp Editor, and much more.

A new Version (6 R2) of the Plugin Mari Extension Pack for Foundry’s Texturing Software MARI is in the wild.

6 R2 is the first free upgrade for Extension Pack 6 Users after last year’s major Version 6 Release in August.

https://www.MariExtensionPack.org

Version 6 R2 Release Video:

Version 6 R2 Release Highlights:

https://docs.mariextensionpack.org/6R2v1/ExtensionPack6R2.html

Version 6 R2 Tutorials:

Highlights:

Node Editor

  • The Node Editor lets you edit the user interface (Node Properties) of Materials and Group Nodes.
  • While Mari natively has a Node Editor, it only allows fundamental tasks such as reordering and linking properties.
  • Extension Pack’s own Node Editor now allows complete control over all aspects of the Node Properties, such as
    • Creating Groups and Tabs for more user-friendly Material Editing
    • Editing of default Values and UI Widget Types (e.g., Slider vs Spinbox, etc.)
    • Non-destructive unlinking of linked Attributes (e.g., Releasing only one Attribute)

Custom Dropdown Menus

  • With a combination of the newly introduced Item List Nodes and the Node Editor,
  • Users can now create their own Dropdown Menus (Comboboxes), for example, to expose
  • Pre-made presets for Materials.

Ramp Editor

  • Probably the star of the 6 R2 Release, the new Ramp Editor finally introduces Gradient Remapping to MARI. Having used many different Ramp approaches as a Texture Artist, with this development, I aimed to remedy many grievances I had with other Ramp Implementations while giving feature parity to other applications such as Houdini, Gaea, Substance Designer, etc.
  • The Ramp Editor is, therefore, feature-rich, with just a few things listed below.
    • Ramp Zoom -unlimited Zoom for pixel-perfect remapping
    • Gradient Key Scaling, Redistribution, and intelligent critical Reduction
    • Sequence Eyedropper – Sample color Sequences from any picture on your screen and either replace the entire gradient or only insert the sequence into a specific area
  • A complete Preset System – create your own presets or use one of the 1000s of pre-made
  • Gradients. Presets include many environment gradients (to colorize terrain) and 700+ character skin color presets, sampled directly from Scan Data.

Selection Group Filtering, Combining, and Visibility Sets

  • Dealing with objects’ visibilities can quickly become a chore on complex assets.
  • The new Selection Group Filtering allows you to hide/show parts of your mesh using simple or advanced expressions and Material IDs.
  • In addition, it is now possible to combine selection groups.
  • Since Mari does not allow the grouping of Selection Groups, Extension Pack 6 R2 introduces the concept of Visibility Sets. Visibility Sets will enable you to store a snapshot of your
  • Current on/off state of individual Selection Groups for easy access.
  • Additional features, such as the direct assignment of Material IDs to individual Sets, round off this feature

New Nodes

  • Several new nodes were added, such as the
    • Pattern Shaper – reprocesses noises and gradients for an alternative look.
    • Complex IOR – convert between physical and artistic IOR values
    • new Function Nodes – for the technical artists to further extend Mari Extension Pack’s capabilities to do visual coding directly in the Node graph
  • RGBA Lookup – a curve-based color correction node

About Mari Extension Pack:

Mari Extension Pack is a plugin for the “MARI by the Foundry” texturing application. Many users consider it indispensable when working with MARI.

The Plugin greatly extends Mari’s capabilities with hundreds of new tools, new nodes, Smart Masks, Material Templates, improved User Experience, and much more.

Now in its 12th year of development, the Plugin is widely used by individual Mari users and dozens of studios worldwide.

About the Author Jens Kafitz

Mari Extension Pack is an independent development by Jens Kafitz, a texture and environment artist with 20 years of experience in visual effects and feature animation.

As a Freelancer in Texturing and Look development interlaced with Pipeline TD work, Jens has been a Mari User since Mari 1.0 and still spends considerable time texturing himself. He is interested in coding and scripting and has extended Mari with new features since 2012.

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