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Mari does not at the time of publication have a Per-Face Texture Mapping (Ptex) implementation, (see last week’s fxpodcast discussion with Disney re: Ptex) but it is on the roadmap for immediate consideration. The challenge for the Foundry will be in selling a paint only program rather than a paint and texturing program that also does 3D sculpting - such as ZBrush or Mudbox. Interestingly, Autodesk Mudbox was created by Skymatter, founded by former artists also from Weta, where it was first used, also on King Kong.
The Foundry’s approach to Mari is to aim it at bigger studios where LookDev and Modeling are two quite separate areas, so the lack of sculpting tools in a paint program would not be such a big issue. But further down the track it is possible that the Foundry will need to address this if they aim to expand to the broader, smaller facility market, which may be less keen to deploy both a Zbrush/Mudbox and Mari parallel setup.
— fxguide - visual effects school - Exclusive: Foundry NAB Preview
