The Foundry released MARI 1.0, the first iteration of their new 3D texture painting application. MARI is a brand new creative 3D texture painting product, originally developed at Weta Digital to handle the exceedingly detailed look development and texture work demanded by Avatar. MARI copes easily with an obsessive level of detail - literally tens of thousands of textures - quickly and elegantly (more on features; videos). MARI is currently available on Linux 64, Windows build will be released later this year. For more information, take a look at MARI on The Foundry's YouTube Channel. You can also download a fully functional 15-day demo license here and have a play for yourself, or buy the application for an MSRP of 600 GBP / 900 USD / 720 EUR ex. VAT, including 1 year of maintenance. In addition, The Foundry announced an exclusive deal with Walt Disney Animation Studios providing access to their Paint 3D technology. Find out more about what this means for MARI here. [source]

Autodesk has acquired Illuminate Labs, a privately held maker of lighting technology for game development. Illuminate Labs' Beast middleware solution and Turtle plug-in for Autodesk Maya software enable faster iteration on a game's creative intent, and more realistic in-game lighting. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Autodesk anticipates that Beast middleware will continue to be licensed as a standalone product, Turtle will be incorporated into future offerings, and discontinued as a standalone product... [source]

The Foundry released a series of video demonstrations explaining the functionality of their upcoming 3D projection painting tool Mari (read the original announcement for more information). The Foundry's YouTube channel hosts a three-part video demo of Mari (Part 1/3, Part 2/3 and Part 3/3) showing the speed of the application handling the T-Rex model from Peter Jackson's King Kong, including (several different versions of) animations, shading, and hundreds of textures. According to the interview, the price will be set around the 500 GBP mark, with public beta version coming out 'soon'. Other new videos demonstrate: 32K texture support in Mari; 2K animated textures; warping tools; and multilayer shaders. [source]

Andrew Shpagin released a new version of its 3D sculpting and painting application 3D-Coat. Numbered 3.3, this version features Ptex technology, a texture mapping system developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios for production-quality rendering. Ptex applies a separate texture to each face of a subdivision or polygon mesh, there is no UV assignment is required! The Ptex file format can efficiently store hundreds of thousands of texture images in a single file. 3D-Coat has also been optimized for speed, better large 3B file handling capability (large than 4 GB), and better usability (more). Current users can download the 3.3 update here, new users can use it as a demo version (limited export, number of layers, and max. texture size). Full version of 3D-Coat for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X systems cost $285 US. [source]

German developer 3d-io games & video production GmbH updated its texture baking 3ds Max plug-in Flatiron. Flatiron can handle multiple objects or whole scenes at once and automatically generates unwrapped UV maps which provide exact pixel to model surface aspect ratio. Version 1.55 adds support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011; more intuitive user interface; enhanced unwrap results; and more. Flatiron is compatible with Autodesk 3ds Max 9, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and comes with a price tag of 249 EUR. Automatically activated Trial license is limited to a fixed texture resolution and can not be started more than 30 times. [source]

The Foundry announced Mari, a 3D texture painting application originally developed at Weta Digital. Mari was designed as a full 3D painting tool with an ability to handle tens of thousands of textures and large models. The application features a fully customisable brush engine, warping tools, filters with real-time preview, Photoshop-style layer blending modes, customizable real-time 3D shader preview, floating point,16-bit and 8-bit channel support, OBJ model import, up to 32K x 32K texture support, and more. For more information, read the case study describing how Mari was used in Avatar. Mari will be initially released for 64-bit Linux, with Windows x64 version following soon, for an as of yet unspecified price. Mari will be premiered at this year's NAB (April 12 - 15, 2010), on The Foundry's stand SL2805. [source]

Spiral Graphics Inc. has released Genetica 3.5, an update to its flagship seamless texture, animated texture, and HDRI environment map package. The new version adds a suite of tools for the creation of seamless textures directly from photographs, allowing photorealistic results to be achieved in seconds. Genetica comes in three flavors: Basic, Pro and Studio, priced between $149 and $899 US and is compatible with Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 systems. A free trial can be downloaded here. [source]

Andrew Shpagin's 3D sculpting, UV mapping and texture painting software for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, 3D-Coat, has been updated to version 3.2. New is the updated user manual, improved functionality of the Splines mode in the E-panel, the ability to limit all rectangular and other effects by depth, majorly improved UV Editing Tools, new Voxel Tools, and much more! Professional license of the 3D-Coat V3 software is available at $285 US ($235 US with discount), free 30-day trial version is available at 3d-coat.com. [source]

Autodesk has announced that DreamWorks Animation SKG and Sony Pictures Imageworks are integrating Autodesk Mudbox digital sculpting and texture painting software into their Linux-based production pipelines. Autodesk Consulting's custom development team worked collaboratively with teams at Imageworks and DreamWorks to port the digital sculpting and texture painting software to the Linux platform. Autodesk Mudbox software is currently available in English on the Linux, Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Mudbox for the Linux platform licenses can be purchased only through a custom contact with Autodesk Consulting. Mudbox for Windows and Macintosh licenses can be purchased through Autodesk software resellers, at the Autodesk on-line store and on Amazon.com. [source]

Filter Forge, Inc. released a beta version of Filter Forge 2.0, a high-end plug-in for Adobe Photoshop allowing computer artists to build their own filters. The beta testing will be conducted in several stages, with new features added at every stage. The first stage includes full support for unlimited HDR colors, Bomber components that allow filter creators to spray image particles in a controlled manner, Minimum, Median, Maximum and Percentile components to create artistic effects, a gamma-aware workflow for technically-minded users, shapes (polygons and ellipses), and instant filter search to make life easier for users with large filter collections. The beta version is available at filterforge.com, and can also function as a fully functional 30-day trial version of the Filter Forge 2.0 Professional edition. All registered users of Filter Forge 1.0 can get a free beta key that allows them to use the beta version until the end of the beta period. The commercial version is planned for release in 2010. Additionally, all editions of Filter Forge 1.0 are offered at a special time-limited 25% discount - you can save up to $75 US. [source]