Wednesday, May 11th, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

The Foundry ships Mari 3.1

The Foundry has released Mari 3.1, the latest update to its 3D texture painting software, adding a new Steady Stroke system for smoothing freehand paint strokes, and improving interoperability with Maya.

New Lazy Mouse-style system for smoothing freehand paint strokes
Although many users’ attention will be on the new free non-commercial edition of Mari, released simultaneously with Mari 3.1, the update has a couple of interesting features of its own.

The first is the Steady Stroke system shown in the video above, which smooths minor jitters in freehand paint strokes in much the same way as ZBrush’s Lazy Mouse.

The degree of stabilisation is user-customisable, with high settings resulting in an appreciable lag (the point of contact isn’t directly under the brush, but ‘dragged’ behind it), but much smoother strokes.

Better interoperability with Maya, new context-sensitive help system
Maya users also get the new mGo system, making it easier to transfer scenes to and fro between the two apps.

The summary on The Foundry’s website doesn’t go into much more detail, but it does note that the new system comes with 65 presents for standard materials, including native Arnold and V-Ray materials.

The update also adds a new context-sensitive help system, shown in this video.

Pricing and availability
Mari 3.1 is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The update is free to users on maintenance contracts. New node-locked and floating licences cost $2,032, including a year’s maintenance.

Read more about the new features in Mari 3.1 on The Foundry’s website