Switching from Mari to InstaMAT?
Go beyond hero-asset painting.
InstaMAT delivers the high-quality 3D painting and texturing workflows artists expect, then adds true procedural material authoring, scalable asset-class texturing, geometry processing, and production automation in one platform.
InstaMAT vs. Mari
Mari is built for high-resolution painting and complex hero assets. InstaMAT keeps the artist-facing texturing workflow, then adds a true multi-step procedural authoring system, reusable project hierarchies, geometry processing, and production-scale automation.
| Feature | Mari |   |
|---|---|---|
| Painting & Scalable Texturing | ||
| 3D Asset Painting | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| 2D / UV Painting | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Layer-Based Asset Texturing | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Procedural Generators, Filters and Masks | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Reusable Smart Layer Stacks | ~ Materials / Node Packages | ✓ Prefab Layer Materials |
| UDIM / Multi-Tile Painting | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Layer References | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available |
| Project References? | ✗ Impossible | ✓ Available |
| Unified Material Workflow? | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available |
| Mesh Baking | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Custom Filters, Effects and Brushes | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Maximum Render/Export Resolution | 32k | 16k |
| Texture Entire Asset Classes with a Single Project | ✗ Impossible | ✓ Designed for scalable asset texturing |
| Use Texturing Project in Node-Based Project? | ✗ Impossible | ✓ Available |
| Topology / UV-Resilient Painting and Masks | ~ Fragile | ✓ Available |
| Built-in Material Library | ~ Limited | ✓ More than 1000 AAA Materials |
| Material Authoring | ||
| Node-Based Procedural Material Authoring | ✗ Missing | ✓ Built into Studio |
| Layer-Based Procedural Material Authoring | ✗ Missing | ✓ Built into Studio |
| Parameterized, Non-Destructive Graphs | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available |
| Procedural Geometry Authoring | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available (Mesh Boolean, Voxelization etc.) |
| Looping Material Graphs | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available via nPass Element Graph |
| Image-to-PBR Material Creation | ✗ Missing | ✓ Available |
| Pipeline & Integration | ||
| CI/CD Batch Asset Processing | ~ Python Execute Mode | ✓ Pipeline |
| C++ SDK | ~ C API | ✓ Available |
| DCC & Game-Engine Integrations | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Execute and Render Projects in the Cloud | ✗ Impossible | ✓ Available via   |
| Platforms | ||
| Available on Windows | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Available on macOS | ✗ Deprecated | ✓ Available |
| Available on Linux | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Licensing Options | ||
| Full-Featured Free Tier? | ✗ No | ✓ Available |
| Commercial Use on Free Tier? | ✗ No | ✓ Yes, subject to Pioneer eligibility & attribution |
| Individuals Seat License? | ~ $86/mo per seat | ✓ $8/mo per seat |
| Individuals Perpetual Seat License? | ✗ No | ✓ $489 per seat |
| Pro Seat License | ~ $1,289/yr per seat | ✓ $432/yr per seat |
| Pro Perpetual Seat License | ✗ No | ✓ $989 per seat |
| Indie Game/Project License? | ✗ No | ✓ $320/mo per 10 seats |
| AAA Game/Project License | ✗ No | ✓ $3333/mo per 150 seats |
| Enterprise License | ✓ Available | ✓ Available |
| Offline License | ✗ No | ✓ Available |
Hero-asset quality. Production-scale systems.
Keep high-quality hands-on texturing, then turn the result into reusable procedural systems that can scale across assets, projects, and automated pipelines.
Painting + True Procedural Authoring
Mari's Node Graph manages texturing layers, channels, shaders and procedural effects. InstaMAT goes further with Element Graphs designed to execute complete multi-step material, texturing, mesh and asset-processing workflows.
Explore Element GraphsScale Beyond the Hero Asset
Use prefab layer materials, project references and procedural controls to build texturing systems that can specialize across whole classes of assets instead of remaining isolated inside individual hero-asset projects.
Build Project Hierarchies
Reference one InstaMAT texturing project from another with live updates from the source, then specialize and customize downstream projects for different assets and variants.
Materials Meet Geometry
Element Graphs can process images, meshes and point clouds together, enabling optimization, UV workflows, baking, procedural geometry and texturing inside one executable graph.
Explore Element GraphsFrom Artist Tool to CI/CD
Build workflows in Studio, then execute them at scale through InstaMAT Pipeline or integrate the same technology directly with the C++ SDK.
Explore the PipelineLicensing Built to Scale
Start with a full-featured Pioneer license if eligible, move to low-cost Indie or Pro plans, choose perpetual licenses, or license entire game productions and enterprise pipelines.
See InstaMAT pricingInstaMAT is an incredibly powerful software package and we're excited to use it at Polyphony Digital for Gran Turismo. InstaMAT helps us streamline our processes and make our team even more effective.
InstaMAT has set out to become nothing less than the holy grail of the material and texture pipeline. To that end, it combines a layer-based painting system with a scalable node-based material and asset editor, adds a mix of innovative features, and builds on InstaLOD's mesh-processing DNA.
Move beyond Mari in 4 practical steps
Start with one representative hero asset, preserve the texturing quality your artists care about, then use InstaMAT to turn that work into a reusable and automated production system.
Get InstaMAT Studio
Start with the full-featured Pioneer license if you qualify, or evaluate InstaMAT on Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Get InstaMATRebuild One Hero Asset
Bring in a representative production mesh and recreate its important materials, layers, masks, projections and painted details in InstaMAT Studio.
Explore InstaMAT StudioTurn the Look into a Reusable System
Move reusable looks into prefab layer materials and project references, then expose procedural controls so related assets can inherit and specialize the same texturing system.
Learn Smart Prefab LayersScale It Through the Pipeline
Put the texturing project into an Element Graph, add optimization, UV unwrapping, baking and exports, then execute the complete workflow with InstaMAT Pipeline and the SDK.
Explore the PipelineReady to move beyond hero-asset texturing?
Keep high-quality 3D painting. Add true procedural authoring, reusable project hierarchies, geometry processing, scalable asset texturing and production automation in one platform.
Nobody else has the full stack.
Your competitors are still assembling their pipeline. You're already shipping.
Everyone else is stitching together six different vendors, wrestling with format conversions, and praying the handoffs don't break. Abstract is the only platform where optimization, materials, collaboration, and delivery were built as one system from day one.
No glue code. No integration nightmares. Just a pipeline that actually works.
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