Released by Jens Kafitz, 2020 - www.MariExtensionPack.org   | Join us on  & or

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RELEASE: April 29, 2020

BACKWARDS COMPATIBLITY: Extension Pack 5,Extension Pack 5R2

MINIMUM REQUIREMENT:  MARI 4.1v2

RECOMMENDED:  MARI 4.5v1 or higher

                       

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• Introduction
• New Features (Tools)
• New Features (Nodes)
• Feature Changes (Tools)

• Feature Changes  (Nodes)

• Bugfixes

• Installation Updates
• Deployment Updates

ICONLEGEND

= New Feature

= Feature Update

= Feature available in Nodegraph only  

• Extension Pack 5 R3 for Mari 4.x is the second of many free updates (both bugfixes and new features) for customers of the Extension Pack 5 series. 

For a full overview of the features released in Extension Pack 5 see its dedicated release notes.

• Extension Pack 5 R2 Release Notes
• Extension Pack 5 R1 Release Notes

• Images in the Image Manager can now be set to 'Auto Reload' if the Source File on Disc changes.

An Example of live streaming changes made to a material in Substance Designer (left) into Mari (right)

Auto Reloading can be turned on/off 

• per selected image(s) via the checkbox in the Image properties
• the new right mouse click menu 'Auto Reload'. 

Once activated, if there already is a change on disc, the selected files will automatically reload instantly.

• A new  'Channels from Node' Tool has been added to the Nodegraph context menu.

This Tools allows you to quickly create Channels for Node Outputs and Shader Inputs, with your personal preference and presets for naming,

resolution etc. Optionally presets can also be standardized across a team via an Environment Variable.

An Example of creating the necessary channels for a material with one click

• The Surface Collection 2.0 by Clement Feuillet  has been licensed to be included in Extension Pack 5 R3.

The items will be added to your standard Mari Shelf* in the Tab 'MEP_Grunges' :

* Automatic Shelf Installation requires Mari 4.5 or higher

• Pre-Authored Material presets for different shader models have been added to the standard Mari Shelf*.

Material Presets give you a quick starting point for authoring new materials, with pre-exposed parameters.

The Material Presets are also available as Templates from within the Mari Material Ingest Tool, allowing you to batch create materials

from existing files on disc (for example Megascans downloads etc.)

* Material Workflows require Mari 4.5 or higher

• New example procedurals have been added to the Mask Shelf / Procedurals Tab. These examples utilize features

of Extension Pack 5 R3 such as Warping, Resampling, Blurring etc. .

To locate the new examples simply use the search bar with '5R3'.

• A new standard Hotbox 'Nodegraph Tools' has been added. It is mapped to F8 by default unless that Hotkey is already in use

• Backdrop Colors of newly created ones are now randomized if a new backdrop is created via a Mari Action 

(e.g. Hotkey, Hotbox or via the Nodes Creation Submenu)

• Extension Pack Nodes utilizing Images in their Attributes now allow you to blur the input image if you are using Mari 4.6v2 or higher

* Blurring support requires Mari 4.6v2 or higher

• Manifold Nodes have been the core nodes in the Nodegraph to control tiling, size and transformations for procedurals and tiling textures alike.

With Extension Pack 5 R3 the list of manifolds grows, allowing you more complex operations on your 3d or or uv based nodes.

Of course you can chain them up with other manifolds for even more complex effects !

• Manifold Radial UV

Transform your 2d Images/Patterns into a circular shape using this UV based Manifold

• Manifold Warp

Warp your 2d Images/Patterns or your 3d procedurals into shape using an input grayscale map. 

Both 2D and 3D Warping are supported

• Manifold Vector Warp

Warp your 2d Images/Patterns or your 3d procedurals into shape using an input vector/normal map

• Manifold Directional Warp

       

Warp your 2d Images/Patterns or your 3d procedurals into shape using inputs to achieve directional effects.

• Extension Pack Nodes (e.g. Image, Axis Projection, Pattern Generators etc.) have new native Normal Map orientation support when transforming images.

Nodes with Image Inputs now have a new 'Image Type' Dropdown exposed allowing you to specify if a normal map is used.

If an image is specified as a Normal Map, rotating and projecting images recalculates normal vectors for correct lighting results.

Below you can see an example of this. The Material was rotated 90 degrees from its original output.

• Extension Pack nodes correctly recalculate the normal map vectors for rotation changes resulting in consistent lighting in viewport & render.
• MARI's default nodes on the right will not compensate for the normal map orientation, resulting in dramatically wrong lighting in viewport & render

• A variety of new Normal Map Nodes have been added

• Normal Rotate

       A node version of the built in Normal Map Orientation Support from Extension Pack Nodes. 

       Allows you to rotate and mirror the normal map orientation

• Normal Facing Angle

       Generates a Mask of the front facing angles from a normal map

• Normal Directional Mask

       Generates a Mask of a custom direction from a Normal Map

• Normal Format Utility Nodes

       2 new Normal Map Format utility Nodes have been added. 

Normal Format Utility Nodes help with building custom material with exposed attributes,

allowing the user to select the type of Normal Map he wishes to use (OpenGL, DirectX)

• The 'Set Node(s) to Shader' Tool has been extended to allow for quick soloing of materials. 

Example of using the 'Set Nodes to Shader' Function (here accessed via the F8 Nodegraph Hotbox) to isolate materials, 

before using 'Reset Shader' to revert back to the original

• The Mari 'Tiled' Node is the mari standard tool to apply images to UVs. With Extension Pack 5 R3 a new Node 'Tiled (Extended)' is added.

The 'Tiled (Extended)' Node is a combination of the Extension Pack 'Image' Node and the Extension pack 'Manifold UV' Node, giving additional

controls such as  ..

• Advanced Transformations
• Normal Map Support
• Tile Modes (no tiling/stencil etc.)

.. in a single node, making these features available to Layerstack Users as well.

• A new math node 'gl_timesMinusOne' was added, performing a simple multiplication of the input value by (-1)

• Rotating the Environment Light via the Hotkeys now automatically rotates the point lights accordingly as well. This is useful to maintain

consistent lighting for example with point lights casting shadows.

• The 'Add Default Object' Dialog in the Object Palette now shows preview icons of the Objects. UV Cuts are highlighted.

• The UDIM Count of Default Objects is now displayed in the Tooltip

• New Objects have been added to the 'Default Object' List:

• A new Shader Ball
• Sphere (2 Tiles)
• Torus
• Cylinder Rounded

       New Training Objects have been added:

• Land Speeder (contributed by Pete Patterson)
• Gramophone

• Previously existing Default Objects have been optimized for uniform texel density

• 'Shelf from Folder' now has an additional 'Include' Filter in addition to the pre-existing 'Exclude' Filter. 

This allows you additional, yet optional control what is loaded

• 'Shelf from Folder'  now allows you to specify a custom Shelf Name if 'Merge into single Shelf' is turned on

• When launching the  Smart Mask Setup Tool manually via the Nodegraph Right Mouse Click Option (independent from the Mask Shelf) ...

... the Setup Tool now no longer requires a valid Smart Mask Node Selection to open.

• If a Node selection is found that can be automatically setup, the Tool will launch in 'Node Setup' Mode
• If no Node Selection is found or the Node Selection is not recognized as Smart Masks the Tool will launch in 'Pre-Bake Maps' Mode.

• Additional Logic has been added to the 'Select Last Shader' Action, to better deal with switches between a Nodegraph Viewer and

Shaders in the Shader Palette.

• When a selected Node has no connections and uses Images inside its Node Properties (e.g. Tiled Nodes, Triplanars etc.),

 'Smart Rename Nodes' will let the node inherit the name of the used image file

• Finer methods for nodegraph node chain selection have been added:

• Select Upstream (stop BEFORE Radios)
• Select Upstream (stop AFTER Radios)

• Swap Node Type and Swap Layer Type have been extended to support swapping of Material Templates

• When closing a Mari Project, non-default Image Manager Tabs are now removed (since they become empty anyway, when closing the project)

• Images can now be tagged as Reference Images. Reference Images are never removed by  'Remove Unused Images'

• All Nodes of the Pattern Engine (e.g. Pattern Generator, Splatter etc.) now have consistent Output Ports such as Out Mask, Out UV, Out ID etc.

• Pattern Engine Nodes now have a new 'Pattern Manifold' port, allowing you to use the internal data of the Pattern Engine Nodes to drive other nodes.

For the Triplanar Versions of these nodes, Manifold Scale can also be controlled via the new 'Manifold Worldscale' Settings in the Node's Transform Section.

A simple Example of an image being driven by the Pattern Engine Node's 'Pattern Manifold ' Port

• Alpha Treatment (premultiplied on/off)  of Utility Output Ports can now be customized via settings found in the new 'Output Alphas' Settings Group

• Pattern Engine Nodes are now clearly color coded in pink

• The Image Node now has a Mask Port to directly feed in an alpha

• The Image Node now has a Base Color Values (Background Value, Background Color, Background Opacity) that get used if no Image is loaded.

• The Image Node now defaults to a very light weight computation if no image is loaded.

• The Image Node now has a new 'Stencil - No Tiling (repeat across udims)' mode. This will apply the image once (non-tiling) to each UDIM

An Example of a single instance of an image placed - non tiling within UDIMs - into each UDIM

• Manifold 3D, Manifold UV and Manifold by Locator now have additional Output Ports to output transformations separately. This can for example 

be used to drive Triplanar nodes directly from Manifolds

Example of using new Manifold UV Outputs do drive settings on a Triplanar Node

• The Axis Projection now now has a new 'Projection Mask' Port input, to allow you to directly feed in a mask

• The Axis Projection now has a Base Color Values (Background Value, Background Color, Background Opacity) that get used if no Image is loaded.

• The Axis Projection now defaults to a very light weight computation if no image is loaded.

• The Cylindrical Projection Node now has additional Output Ports 'UV' and 'Mask'

• The Cylindrical Projection now has a Base Color Values (Background Value, Background Color, Background Opacity) that get used if no Image is loaded.

• The Cylindrical Projection now defaults to a very light weight computation if no image is loaded.

• Float & Float-3 Nodes now have an additional Range Slider 0-360 for better workflows with attributes set in degrees.

• The  gl_CartesianToPolar Node has a new Attribute 'Interpolate Quadrants', allowing you to modify the method used to calculate the 4 quadrants

of the resulting circle

• The following nodes now have a Manifold 3D Input port exposed in the nodegraph (for example for Warping effects):

• Axis Projection
• Cylindrical Projection
• Directional Gradient
• Pattern Generator (X1) Triplanar & Pattern Generator (X4) Triplanar
• Shape Splatter Triplanar
• Splatter (X1) Triplanar & Splatter (X4) Triplanar
• Symmetry Pattern Generator Triplanar
• Shape Triplanar
• Texture Scatter (X1) Triplanar
• Backface Mask
• Checkers Triplanar
• Fibers Triplanar
• Dots Triplanar
• Stripes Triplanar
• Super Ellipse Triplanar
• Weave Triplanar

• The following nodes have been reanmed

• 'Cavity from Tangent Space Normal' is now called 'Normal Cavity'
• 'Edge from Normal Map' is now called 'Normal Edge'
• 'Normal Map Intensity' is now called 'Normal Intensity'

• All Triplanar nodes now have consistent Node Port Names and Port ordering in sync with Manifold Nodes

Example of a few triplanar nodes with new conistent port names and port ordering

• MARI could crash when opening a project on Mac OS 10.13.6 High Sierra

• A Debug Mode was left on by mistake, resulting in a Debug line ('no module found') being printed into the Python Console on Mari Startup.

• The automatic Merge Node Colorspace preference didn't always change the Merge Node 'Colorspace Enabled' Dropdown inside the nodes

Node Properties when the new merge node was created inside of a Material.

• Fixed a bug in the Mask Shelf Search Field where 'Tags' would not be found when searched for, if the tag contained upper case letters

• A fairly significant number of presets in the 'Procedural' Tab of the Mask Shelf produced a shader compile error due to calling a since renamed Shader Function

• The Hotbox Manager Preset System to save and reload custom Hotbox Styles was not working

• Switching between Hotboxes in the Hotbox Manager did not reset the preset dropdown selection

• Function Keys (F1-F12) could not be directly assigned as Hotkeys in the Hotbox Manager

• Some default Hotboxes did not have the 'Close on Button Click' option turned on, which could lead to 'double execution' of buttons functions.

• The configuration json files of Hotboxes were not formatted in an easy, human-readable way

• 'Add Default Object' produced and error when an object was added as an Object Version and the same Default Object Name already existed.

• The AND operator ('+') in the 'Shelf from Folder' Exclude Filter did not work correctly

• 'Swap Node Type'  &  'Swap Layer Type'  no longer worked on certain nodes after a change made in Extension Pack 5 R2

• 'Swap Node Type'  &  'Swap Layer Type'  when swapping between two more or less identical nodes (for example between UV and Triplanar 

versions of the same node type), if the node types contained multiple output ports, the resulting swap did not maintain connections on outputs other

than the first one.

• Selecting upstream Nodes via the 'Select Upstream Nodes' Tools inside of Materials and Graph Groups did not work. 

• The Pattern Generator (X4) Triplanar was broken in Extension Pack 5 R2

• Fixed a Bug in the Unreal Advanced Shader that was preventing the 'Bump' Label to show up in the Material Ingester Stream View.

• There has been a change in licensing procedure. For more information refer to the Installation / Licensing Section of this Online Help

• You can now select which version of Extension Pack to load, if multiple versions are installed.

• There has been a change in licensing procedure. For more information refer to the Installation / Licensing Section of this Online Help

• The Contents of Resource Folder have been updated. 

If you have previously moved the resource folder to a location outside of the installation directory, you should replace it with the new one 

using the method described here

• The ResourceLocator.json file to move resources to a different location and specify custom settings directories now supports Environment Variables and

User Directory Expansion. Refer to the appropriate topics below for more information:

• Moving the large resources of Extension Pack out of the installation folder
• Specifying a custom Settings Location