Discovering what’s new in Foundry Mari 7.1

The Foundry has released the latest version of Mari, the 3D texture painting software, Foundry Mari 7.1. It introduces new features including a 2D Paint Mode for creating or editing 2D images without switching to another application, a new Switch node for creating texture variations, an enhanced Node Graph, and more.

Let’s discover what’s new in this latest version with iRender in this blog! 

The primary new addition in Foundry Mari 7.1, the latest release of Foundry’s 3D texture painting tool, is the introduction of 2D Paint Mode. This feature enables users to create or modify 2D images and decals and paints unique patterns from the ground up without leaving the software. 

Paint custom decals and clone out imperfections with full access to Mari’s powerful Paint Buffer, Node Graph, Layer Stack, and all of the functionality you’ve come to love without breaking your muscle memory.

Users can export the Node Graph to disk in 2D mode in a new .mrimg file format.

The update also adds a new Image Write node type intended for use in 2D mode, equivalent to the existing Bake Point node for 3D workflows.

It makes it possible to bake out a 2D image to the Image Manager that is automatically updated on each rebake.

To increase visibility, the decision has been made to rebrand Custom Procedurals as Smart Masks to help users visualize how they might want to use the procedural groups in their projects.

Additionally, the revamped Smart Mask Shelf now includes over 50 Smart Masks and utility nodes, providing you with even more powerful tools right out of the box in Mari. As with Custom Procedurals, these new Smart Masks can be used in conjunction with Geo-Channels or baked maps from the Bakery in order to drive material looks such as Ambient Occlusion Dust, Crusty Dirt, Drips, Scratches and more. 

The Switch node allows artists to create multiple variations of a texture, such as ‘Clean’ and ‘Dirty’, and be able to quickly change which upwards stream is used with a simple UI toggle that chooses which input should be actively compiled by the shader. This UI toggle can be promoted within a Material, Group or Smart Mask/Custom Procedural node for easy access. 

System properties for Particles are exposed in the Simulation Scene Settings.

Add and define custom particle properties to be used in emitters and modifiers.  Emitters and Modifiers can define output data to be generated for the defined custom property, each will have its own unique data that is outputted. When custom properties are defined, parameters corresponding to their type will appear under the Custom tab of the Emitter objects.

A new Grunge shelf has been added to the Shelf palette, which comes loaded with high-quality grunge textures created by industry professionals. It includes:

• • • All of the textures used in the new Smart Masks collection, by Stuart Ansley

• • • The Grunge Textures for Mari pack was released alongside Mari 7.0, by Johnny Fehr

The new shelf provides quick access to these textures for use as stencils, and projections, and for creating your own Smart Masks and Materials.

iRender provides high-configuration servers that increase CPU and GPU rendering speeds. We offer the most powerful RTX 4090 configuration packages on the market, all equipped with AMD RyzenTM ThreadripperTM PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz and AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz processors, 256GB RAM and 2T NVMe SSD hard drive capacity. With a wide range of GPU servers (1/2/4/6/8x) – RTX 4090, you can choose the server that suits your needs to start the rendering process.

Foundry Mari is commonly used alongside several other software tools in the 3D industry, especially for texturing and look development such as Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, Katana, Nuke, ZBrush…Whether or not you use any of those 3D software, you still can find a suitable package at iRender.

Moreover,  iRender provides useful features to help you switch among the server’s configurations without having to reinstall anything. You can even run multiple servers simultaneously to speed up the renders, without having to re-install anything.

Let’s watch the video below to understand our workflow more easily. 

For Windows:

For MacOS:

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References & image sources:  cgchannel & learn.foundry