Mari Indie, worth it?
polycounter lvl 9
I was perusing steam and I saw Mari indie, now there are only two reviews on it, one quite negative and the other is positive. The one mentioned quite a few limitations of the indie version, can anyone else voice any opinions on it? I was planning on picking up the substance suite as well, but I feel like it substance is best suited towards hard surface stuff (though that could be just because I haven't seen enough creatures textured with it), but in either case I still think Mari would still be valuable to learn because I've seen some amazing stuff done with it, so thoughts?
Replies
Hi, my name is Brandon and I am the MODO/MARI Indie Advocate on Steam.
We are actually working on several updates to MARI Indie that will address some of the concerns of our users.
When you get a chance, jump into the MARI Indie chat room so we can answer any questions you may have. MARI is used in several large scale environments relating to Games and VFX which has the reputation for being a very stable application.
I'm still learning MARI, but we have some avid users and experts that can help answer your questions in the forums and chat.
You can't go wrong with Substance Painter, it's come a long way since beta.
Watch these tutorials on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0wXHrWAmCyJEDZLLQvusBxDbskFmh9K
Do yourself a favor and pick it up, it's awesome for game art and pbr texturing.
These are probably the best examples of creatures done with substance that I can think of off the top of my head
http://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php/topic,2179.0.html
and this is a video showing off how the dude made one of the winners
[ame]
The best balance for texturing I have seen so far is a mixture of 2d editor (krita, PS) and something like 3D Coat, but no app will be perfect. For what Mari Indie cost though, you are getting a lot of bang for your buck.
when you are workin in your own bubble maybe, but the lack of psd support (merged maps in one layer are no psd support) makes it completely useless in a production environment with plenty of studios. so basically substance painter is useful to creating masks only.
that scenario sounds logical and plausible
now to
Marie Indie;
it is in your scenario a much worse idea for usage;
you can only use the files connected with your steam account since it locks the files and even that fails sometimes and you can´t access the files you created.
another "fun" thing; you can´t open mari testfiles from the official site since it isn´t having the right names attached to it.
so in conclusion; Mari Indie is actually worse than substance Painter since Marie Indie locks you out a lot more from working in a team.
I really like what I've seen so far what the program can do, however I worry that the indie version will be too bogged down. I would pay more money just to have a fully unlocked ones but the prices are quite steep even for a one year educational license and the quarter prices is even worse sooo....
I wouldnt say its bizarre, rather it seems pretty smart to me. Its one of the major reasons they can offer normally $1500-2000 pieces of software for $150-299. It assumes or creates the situation in which an indie artist (freelancer or someone working on their own) can take advantage of software that usually has studio pricing associated with it. Files can still be transferred between users, just not in the native application format... Thus the indie wont cannibalize the full version in a studio pipeline. I prefer that approach over cutting out features and functionality.
Jack Greasley visits PC from time to time responding to Mari threads, so I wouldnt be surprised if you get a response from him as well.
I do have to concede though, at least with the non Modo products the Foundry delivers... that there is struggle to just let go and trust the consumer more with features and price point. They are kind of stuck on this old, give studios a run for their money, business scheme... which doesnt really carry over well for game artist and the hobbyist/freelancer/indie. Eventually I think the competition and nature of the market will push them to go with the luxology mentality over the old foundry one.
For the most well rounded (hits multiple art styles with ease), easy to use texturing package though, check out 3d coat as option alongside Mari.
I have yet to find that client not caring for PSDs, i understand the tool and it is great. but we also get their textures for reference and it always PSD, always.
It seems to me that any company fully adopting substance must not be dealing with outsourcers at all, which is increasingly uncommon to find. Alternatively something like Quixel or 3DCoat gives you the option to demonstrate your texturing to outsourcers by handing them an example PSD and them being able to use it whether they use Quixel/3DCoat or not. I think the lack of PSD export from the substance workflow is an issue that negatively affects both sides of outsourcing.
Actually, the studios that are using substance the most at the moment are using a whole lot of outsourcing. Most Asian outsourcing studios have a "substance team" that can deliver substance files/projects to these studios and they are also building their own substance tools library at the same time. It's a fairly new process, but it's healthy and growing.
Somebody call?
You've hit the nail pretty much on the head. We needed a way to differentiate Mari Indie and get the price down. We wanted to do this in a way that wouldn't be a limit to the majority of people who might be interested in Mari Indie.
One thing I would say is that sharing Mari projects, even in VFX world, isn't common. Most artists work on an asset, export the textures and share those.
Regarding issues people have seen with projects, we did have a bug in the first version of Mari Indie that would, under rare circumstances, lead to project corruption.
We're VERY sorry about this as we pride ourselves as being as close to 0% data loss as possible. We try very hard to ensure that even if Mari crashes while saving or processing, you don't loose work.
We worked with the artists who reported this and have pushed a fix a couple of weeks ago. It shouldn't happen again.
The Foundry Indie team was hoping you could help us to gain some valuable feedback so that we can improve the community.
Please follow the link below... as if it were a trail of virtual breadcrumbs... Oh jeez now I'm hungry!
http://steamcommunity.com/app/289550/discussions/0/618453594765053760/
We appreciate your help in this!