Case Study: Sony Pictures Imageworks achieves a stylized Spider-Man look with Foundry Katana and Mari

Sony Pictures Imageworks uses Foundry to run 480 shader tests for Spider-Man

Sony Pictures Imageworks faced the unique challenge of creating a highly stylized, comic book-inspired visual look for the animated film *Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse*. This required developing entirely new workflows to solve complex problems in look development, lighting, and texturing, moving far from the standard processes of a normal VFX production.

Foundry's Katana and Mari were implemented as the core solutions. Katana provided the tools to manage immense complexity, allowing the team to build modular, reusable lighting setups and test thousands of shader variations rapidly. Mari enabled the texturing team to proficiently handle a huge volume of assets through its layer-based workflow and UDIM support. The result was the successful achievement of the directors' specific vision, winning an Oscar, with Foundry's tools being credited as essential to managing the innovation and tight deadlines required by the production.

Sony Pictures Imageworks