MARI 3D texture painting system recognized by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
London, January 11, 2016— The Foundry, leading creative software developer, has announced that its MARI development team will be honored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the annual Scientific and Technical Awards presentation on Saturday, February 13. The awards recognize individuals that have added value to the filmmaking process.
For their contributions to MARI’s development, Jack Greasley, Kiyoyuki Nakagaki, Duncan Hopkins and Carl Rand from The Foundry will receive an Academy Plaque in the Scientific and Engineering Awards category at the ceremony to be held at the Beverley Wiltshire in Beverly Hills.
MARI, a high-end texture painting application, was developed specifically for visual effects and CG. It has been used in the production of films including Avatar, The Avengers, Academy Award® winner Gravity and Jurassic World among others. In 2015, The Foundry software was used in the creation of all the nominated films in the 2015 Academy Awards® category achievement in visual effects, including the winner, Interstellar.
The Foundry’s portfolio of products now includes three Sci-Tech Award winners—KATANA, NUKE and MARI—as well as Sci-Tech award-winning motion estimation technology in the form of FURNACE, which is fully integrated into NUKEX and NUKE STUDIO.
"Receiving an Academy Award is the pinnacle of creative and technology achievement in our industry and we are utterly honored to have the outstanding, innovative brilliance of the MARI team recognized" said Alex Mahon, CEO of The Foundry.
"The Foundry is a home for the best and brightest talent, our singular focus is solving the problems of creative clients with the highest quality standards for their work. We create tools for the artists who spend their days crafting and pioneering Academy Award caliber films. MARI was created in the best spirit of the creative industries - with exceptional partnership, complex and innovative technology and state-of-the-art artistic requirements. The Foundry and the MARI team are committed to continually innovating and improving our software and enabling even greater visual effects to be achieved."
MARI is developed to address real, pressing issues experienced by the VFX industry. With direct artist input throughout that process, The Foundry ensures that the tool can meet and exceed the requirements of complex visual effect pipelines. MARI allows artists to work quicker and with higher fidelity than ever before. The adoption of MARI across a wide range of visual effects, CGI and other graphics facilities has shown that it addresses a widely encountered problem in a best-of-breed manner.
About The Foundry
The Foundry is a global developer of creative software used to deliver high-end visual and 3D effects for the design, visualization and entertainment industries. The portfolio allows artists to create inspiring and complex technical images and visual experiences in video content (Film, TV, Commercials), gaming environments, UI, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality and 3D design.
The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in London, with offices in Silicon Valley, Manchester, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Dublin and Austin. It has a staff of 300. Our founders, Dr. Bill Collis and Simon Robinson were awarded with a Sci-Tech award for the design and development of the FURNACE integrated suite of software tools, which now sit inside NUKEX and NUKE STUDIO.
Clients include Pixar, Mercedes-Benz, ILM, Double Negative, The Moving Picture Company, Walt Disney Animation, WetaDigital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Skullcandy.
Our software has underpinned the effects in movies including Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Avengers, Jurassic World and Academy Award® winners Gravity and Interstellar.
In 2015, the London Stock Exchange named The Foundry one of its “1000 Companies to Inspire Britain.”