Foundry, a software developer for media and entertainment, has released Mari 6.0. Mari is Foundry’s cutting-edge 3D painting and texturing tool that combines power and performance to handle the most complex assets. This release focuses on enhancements to improve artists’ workflows and efficiency, with two new USD Exports, a new Roller Brush paint mode, Python snippets as Shelf items and a teleport node.
The two new USD improvements are designed to ensure that texturing pipelines are USD-ready. With the USD Look Exporter, artists can export a single USD Look file that contains all of the relevant shader information, reducing duplication of work in setting up USD Looks for use in Katana or other DCCs and bringing Look Development and Lighting together earlier on in the pipeline. Artists will also now have the ability to use Mari’s selection tools to assign materials to the correct USD face set-based location.
Building on the already extensive painting toolset in Mari, the Roller Brush is a new painting mode that enables artists to paint a tileable image whilst following the curves and directions of a brush stroke. This allows artists to perfect the finer details without having to manually paint each individual stitch by hand, saving valuable time without losing creative control. This makes repetitive painting tasks such as creating seams and decals on characters’ clothing easier than ever.
Mari 6.0 also introduces a simpler way to execute Python Script actions using Python Snippets as Shelf items, so artists aren’t required to install Python Scripts into the Scripts path before launching Mari. This encourages collaboration between artists as they can more easily share scripts amongst themselves and across studios, meaning tasks can be completed more efficiently.
Finally, the teleport node: a node of two parts—Broadcaster and Receiver—that creates hidden connections in the nodegraph lands in this release. Allowing artists to easily organize the nodegraph, clean up networks and reduce excess clicks, the teleport workflow saves valuable time and reduces the risk of strain from manual navigation. Artists can jump quickly between Broadcast and Receiver to quickly navigate the nodegraph without needing to manually find nodes.
The Gardening.club. Grows AI Talent Roster
The Gardening.club., the sister company to production house The Sweetshop, has assembled a lineup of eight new artificial intelligence (AI) artists. The ensemble of talent looks to redefine storytelling by fusing cutting-edge AI with human creativity. The Gardening.club.’s guiding rule is that AI is never just a substitute; it must enhance and expand creative vision.
The fresh cohort of AI artists will bring an extra dimension to the work already championed by futurist Tomas Roope, co-founder of The Gardening.club, along with AI artist and co-founder Jacqui Kenny whose collaborative projects with brands like Gucci, Google, OpenAI and Louis Vuitton have impacted both the art and commercial worlds.
Melanie Bridge, co-founder and CEO of The Sweetshop and co-Founder of The Gardening.club,, said, “We’ve made it our mission to unearth the world’s top AI artists—it was a mandate for us that each would be a brilliant storyteller with a unique voice. It was also crucial that their body of work demonstrated not only artistic vision but would seamlessly translate into the commercial world. It’s not common to see this level of mastery in AI artistry, and we believe our roster of eight represents the very best out there today.
Bridge continued, “We have also been working hard with copyright lawyers worldwide to develop a comprehensive system of protocols, that ensure we can confidently use AI in our commercial projects--we are very proud of this and believe it to be an industry first.”
Joining The Gardening.club are a group of talented artists who have already made waves as storytellers in the AI art world--Kenny, Floam World, Nathan Boey, Ethereal Moon, Junie Lau, Aashay Singh, YZA Voku, and KEZIAI. These artists’ backgrounds are... Read More