Mari

Mari is a specialist 3D painting application for high-resolution texturing and look development in VFX, animation and games. It is best suited to texture artists handling complex assets and production pipelines. Choose it for its substantial UDIM capacity and pipeline tools; look elsewhere if you need a free edition without production limits or cannot accommodate periodic online license checks.

Overview

Mari is built for demanding texture work, not as an all-purpose 3D creation suite. It supports thousands of UDIM textures per model, with each texture reaching 32K × 32K pixels. That headroom is valuable for assets that need extensive, detailed maps; it is harder to justify for simpler work that does not use that scale.

Projection painting lets artists preview edits in context before committing them across texture maps, helping them assess changes against the model first. Mari’s production focus is reinforced by its support for established pipeline formats and render shaders. The main practical trade-offs are the restrictions on the free edition and the online checks required for individual subscriptions.

Key features

Painting and baking

Multi-Channel Paint handles up to eight streams at once, which suits coordinated channel work on complex assets. Mari’s Bakery can bake geometry maps such as curvature and occlusion across multiple objects and UDIMs, bringing those baking tasks into the texturing workflow.

Pipeline fit

Support for OpenColorIO, OpenSubdiv, FBX and Alembic, along with APIs and Python scripting, makes Mari a plausible fit for studios integrating it into established pipelines. Shaders are provided for 3Delight, VRay, Unreal and Arnold. These options matter most to teams whose existing formats, renderers and tools align with them; they are less compelling if the work does not need pipeline integration.

Pricing

Mari Non-commercial costs nothing, for as long as you like, but is limited to non-commercial use. Exports are capped at 4K and 16-bit per channel, Python scripting is disabled, and no more than five objects can be open at once. It is a useful way to explore Mari, but those restrictions make it unsuitable for unrestricted production output.

Mari Individual Subscription costs $86 a month or $689 a year, with applicable taxes. Each plan provides one license for one named user, and each user may have one license. The annual plan costs less than paying the monthly rate across a full year, while the monthly option suits shorter commitments. Both use login-based licensing: an internet connection is required at first login on a machine and at least once every 30 days thereafter.

A free 30-day trial offers unrestricted access, giving artists a way to evaluate the full application before committing. For teams, Mari Rent is $949, paid once, billed $949/qtr, for a quarterly rental license; node-locked or floating licenses are available. Mari Subscribe (teams) costs $1,289 a year, billed $1,289 annually, with node-locked or floating licenses. Both team options are subject to applicable taxes. They are better suited to studio access needs than the single-user individual subscriptions; choose between rental and annual licensing based on the term required.

Platforms

Mari supports Windows 11 64-bit and Linux 64-bit (Rocky/RHEL 9). Artists working on other operating systems will need another option.

Who it's for

Mari is strongest for texture artists, freelancers and small companies that need high-resolution, multi-UDIM painting and have one user who needs access. Studios can choose node-locked or floating licenses through team subscriptions. Its technical ceiling and pipeline tools suit demanding production assets, while the non-commercial caps leave less room for serious output than the unrestricted trial or paid editions.

Pros and cons

Pros: Thousands of UDIM textures per model and resolutions up to 32K × 32K support detailed, complex assets.

Pros: Projection previews, painting across up to eight streams, and multi-object, multi-UDIM baking cover key parts of a production texturing workflow.

Pros: Formats, APIs, scripting and renderer shaders support pipeline integration.

Cons: The free edition restricts commercial use, exports, Python scripting and object count.

Cons: Individual subscription access requires periodic internet validation.

Cons: Individual subscriptions are for one named user; teams need a separate licensing option.

Alternatives

For storyboard and previs work rather than high-resolution 3D texturing, consider Previs Pro: its free plan allows one animatic per project with watermarked exports, while its annual plan is $9.99 a year as billed $119.99/year and includes unlimited projects, scenes and shots. StoryTribe is another freemium alternative, with a free plan that includes 100 monthly AI credits, unlimited projects, 10 shots per project, and watermarked downloads and exports.

Studiovity is a freemium option for content creation and film-TV pre-production; its Education monthly plan costs $22 a month. For collaborative review workflows, Krock.io offers a free tier for one user with 2 GB storage, one workspace and two projects. Boords offers a free single-user plan with 250 AI images per month and unlimited storyboards and scripts.

Shot Designer may suit scene planning: its free tier saves one current scene but has no file management, export, sync or team sharing. AIM Previz is a free option with 50 credits a month and a seven-day Pro trial with 150 credits. Storyboard That offers a free plan limited to two storyboards per week, with three-cell layouts and watermarked downloads.

Browse 3D Texturing Software, Game Texture Software or Visual Effects Software for related categories. Storyboard Software and Motion Tracking Software cover different production needs.

Verdict

Choose Mari if your work depends on large, detailed UDIM sets, context-aware projection painting and integration with a production pipeline. Its scale and pipeline options are the strongest reasons to pay for it. Look elsewhere if the free edition’s limits are a deal-breaker, your projects do not need its capacity, or periodic online validation does not fit your setup.