The Foundry ships Mari 3.2
The Foundry has released Mari 3.2, the latest update to its 3D texture painting software, adding new features to its node graph, including the option to bake out parts of the node network.
Other new features improve geometry selection and OpenEXR file export.
Navigation of the node graph now more intuitive for users of other software
One of the key changes in Mari 3.2 is the update to the node graph, first exposed to users in Mari 3.0.
The changes should make working with the graph more intuitive to users of other node-based software, including a standard left-to-right layout, colour coding of nodes, and zoom-dependent level of detail.
A new Viewer node enables users to set up shortcut keys to navigate to different parts of the node graph; and the search function now supports partial name matching and wildcard searches.
There are also a number of smaller workflow features, which you can see in the video above.
The graph also gets a new Bake Point node, which bakes all of the information from upstream nodes, including procedurals, to a texture, freeing up GPU memory.
The process is non-destructive, with the colour of the node updating in the graph if the upstream network is edited, indicating that the texture must be re-baked.
New mesh selection options, plus OpenEXR 2.2 support
Other changes include a Connectedness Mesh selection type for extending any existing face selection to all contiguous faces.
This makes it possible to select independent islands of polygons within a single mesh: for example, to select an individual eyeball where both eyes of a character have been created as a single mesh.
The update also introduces support for OpenEXR 2.2, reducing file size for texture maps exported from the sofware without noticeable degradation in quality.
Pricing and availability
Mari 3.2 is now shipping 64-bit Windows 7+, CentOS and RHEL 6+ Linux and Mac OS X 10.9.5+. Both node-locked and floating licences currently cost $2,032, including a year’s maintenance.
Read a full list of new features in Mari 3.2 in The Foundry’s release notes