First released in 2011, Yeti is a node-based tool for creating, grooming, and styling hair, fur, and feathers. Its workflow is independent of topology and is based on layers. It is compatible with Arnold, Redshift, RenderMan, Unreal Engine, and V-Ray renderers.
Yeti has been used in various VFX and animation projects, including the animated film "The Amazing Maurice" and the "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise.
The key changes in Yeti 5.0 include a new hair shader for Maya Viewport 2.0. According to Peregrine Labs, it is "aimed at adhering to common hair shading practices in production" and includes controls for melanin and IOR.
Additionally, interactive XGen hairstyles from Maya can now be imported into the Yeti graph, and all Yeti nodes in Maya now support soft selection and weighted transformations. Among other changes, the Yeti graph has received a new Groom Sampler, allowing direct control over any parameter using the groom's paintable attribute. The program is currently available only for Windows and Linux, with macOS support discontinued since the release of Yeti 4.2.
Yeti 5.0 is compatible with Maya 2023 and above, running on Windows 10 and above, RHEL, CentOS, and Rocky Linux 8.5. Indie licenses - one perpetual workstation node-locked license and one render node license - are available to artists with annual incomes under $100,000 and cost $329.
Studio licenses - one perpetual floating workstation license and five render node licenses - cost $699. Additional packs of five render node licenses cost $399.