Foundry powers up its look development and lighting offering with launch of Katana 3.0 and Mari 4.1

The highly anticipated product updates will provide a more user-friendly experience and improved response times, enabling artists to achieve powerful results, with greater efficiency. 

Peter Nofz, Chief Technology Officer at Rodeo FX, said: “Katana 3.0 allows us to work faster and more efficiently than ever before. We are now using Katana on all our feature film projects.”

Continuing to support both small and large studios, Katana 3.0 brings a new, powerful viewport driven by Pixar’s USD Hydra technology. The toolset ships with the 3Delight rendering plugin, giving users the option to enjoy the best-in-class live rendering free of charge for interactive renders and an affordable option for batch renders. The UI has been modernized, and performance improvements mean that Katana 3.0 is up to 1.5x faster than the previous version.    

Mari 4.1 users will benefit from improved artist friendly color management including: color picking, a more intuitive colorspace toolbar, easier management of Channels,  perceptually linear display of Scalar Channels, and much more. Mari 4.1 also benefits from new functionality for Selection Groups that vastly increases user efficiency.

Jordan Thistlewood, Senior Product Manager Look Development and Lighting at Foundry, said: “We’re always looking to bring improved speed and efficiency for our users. We have worked closely with our customers over the last year to improve Katana and Mari where it matters most, to ensure they can work with tools that are consistently at the cutting-edge of development. We are very happy to provide an artist friendly UX to color management in Mari 4.1 and the updated UI/UX of Katana 3.0 driven by the new Hydra powered viewport. These developments and our future plans are key to ensuring that all artists are armed with the best creative tools in look development and lighting.”

To purchase Katana 3.0 please request a call-back from Foundry  or contact your local reseller. 

Mari 4.1 will be available for purchase on Foundry’s website. 

For more information visit the Katana and Mari pages on Foundry’s website.