Katana 3.6v3 Release Notes

Release Date

05 November 2020

Previous Releases

System Requirements

Officially Supported Operating Systems

  • Windows 7 64-bit or higher
  • Linux 64-bit operating system (CentOS/RHEL 6)

Hardware Requirements

Minimum Recommended
CPU Dual-core processor
Storage 1+ GB available for installation
System RAM 1+ GB available
Graphics RAM 1+ GB available 2+ GB available
Display 800 x 600 1920 x 1080
OpenGL OpenGL 4.3+

'Recommended' does not guarantee that it meets your particular needs

Tested Workstation Hardware

The configurations listed below are those that Foundry have tested with Katana. Due to the constantly changing nature and wide variety of computer hardware available in the market, Foundry is unable to officially certify hardware. The list below can be used as a recommendation and does not guarantee that it meets your particular needs.

  • NVIDIA Quadro M4000

  • NVIDIA Quadro P4000

  • NVIDIA Quadro K4000

  • NVIDIA Quadro K6000

Please download and install the latest graphics driver from the NVIDIA website.

If you encounter any issues, please contact Customer Support directly through the Support Portal at the following address: https://support.foundry.com.

What's New in Katana 3.6

These release notes describe changes from Katana 3.6v2 to 3.6v3.

For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 3.6 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 3.6 document.

Bug Fixes

API/SDK Changes

  • ID 442192 - When interacting with parameters on the root node that relate to region of interest, such that only a subset of ROI parameters on the root node were set, Katana crashed. The issue occurred when invoking certain ROI functions from the RenderManager module, e.g. RenderManager.SetRenderUseROI(), before creating a Monitor tab in the UI session. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.6v1.)

  • ID 442251 - When events were queued with eventID set as None, Katana's EventModule module wrongly processed them twice. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1. Only the Katana UI was affected.)

Catalog

  • ID 450123 - When opening a Katana project with persistent catalog items, then starting a Live Render, then reverting the project or quitting Katana, Python exceptions occurred, and subsequent renders all failed. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.5v1.)

Hydra Viewer

  • ID 431869 - When selecting a light or camera while the Center of Interest manipulator was selected, Katana was stalling briefly before the manipulator's handles appeared. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.6v1.)

  • ID 444689 - When updating the render region of interest (ROI) during a Live Render session using Arnold while viewing the rendered image in the Viewer (Hydra) tab's Monitor Layer, the Monitor Layer overlay was wrongly squashed or stretched.

NetworkMaterialEdit

  • ID 441881 - Undoing certain edits in a NetworkMaterialEdit node with a Look File source material could cause the undo to fail and hence reset the Undo History, if the source material changed to no longer include the edited node.

Node Graph

  • ID 453701 - When attempting to initiate a drag-and-drop action for nodes inside of NetworkMaterialCreate or NetworkMaterialEdit nodes using the Ctrl+B shortcut, a Python exception was raised.

Rendering

  • ID 435008 - When using render plug-ins whose primary layer was not named as "primary" (e.g. Arnold or V-Ray), ID buffers were not correctly allocated. This prevented the Pixel Probe tool in the Monitor tab from working.

    (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.5v3. As a workaround in releases since then, users could set KATANA_CATALOG_ALLOCATE_ID_BUFFER_PER_AOV to 1, enforcing the creation of the ID buffer for every AOV.)

Scene Graph

  • ID 446117 - When Implicit Resolvers were toggled on (or off), components that use the UI4.Util.ClientManager class were not correctly updating their Op chain, therefore failing to apply resolvers at the correct time. For instance, this was preventing the Scene Graph tab from correctly showing deferred locations that depend on resolvers for being cooked. (This issue was a regression in the UI4.Util.ClientManager class that was introduced in Katana 3.6v1.)

Known Issues

Catalog

  • ID 114182 / BZ 49288 - When exporting a Catalog item you need to specify the export folder path to an existing folder. If the folder you're trying to export to does not exist on disk Katana will fail to export. (This issue is a regression in Katana 2.0v1.)

Hydra Viewer

  • ID 427252 - Locators created via PrimitiveCreate nodes can be snapped to in all modes, rather than just the Lights, Cameras, and Locators mode.

  • ID 420882 - Changing between the Viewer (Hydra) tab's multipane layout options quickly can cause a crash or many error messages to be written to the terminal/console.

  • ID 352167 - Textures loaded from Hydra shaders are not cleared or reloaded from disk when flushing caches.

Live Groups

  • ID 85118 / BZ 41152 - When editing parameters of a node that is part of a LiveGroup node and reloading the parent LiveGroup node, the UI state of the Parameters tab is reset. This includes scroll bar positions, selections of items, and selections of nested tabs (for example Object, Material and Linking tabs for a Gaffer node).

  • ID 84998 / BZ 41092 - When reloading a LiveGroup node's parameter interface and contents from its source, parameters of child nodes that are edited in floating panes disappear from those panes.

  • ID 84020 / BZ 40598 - Reverting a LiveGroup node does not revert its user parameters.

  • ID 84019 / BZ 40599 - Parameters that are added to LiveGroup nodes are wrongly discarded when performing a reload from source, leading to loss of data.

  • ID 84018 / BZ 40600 - Undoing a revert of an unpublished LiveGroup node does not restore the LiveGroup's editable and modified state.

  • ID 83061 / BZ 40237 - Nodes can be dragged into the Group bubble of a non-editable LiveGroup node.

Materials

  • ID 429775 - NetworkMaterialEdit nodes do not currently respect local Graph State changes, for example as performed by VariableSet nodes downstream.

  • ID 429302 - When editing a locked node inside a NetworkMaterialEdit node graph, the parameters will be shown at their default state.

  • ID 429206 - Parameter expressions when promoted from shading nodes in a NetworkMaterialCreate node are of a constant value, relative to the resolved expression at time of creation.

  • ID 427408 - When entering a NetworkMaterialEdit node whose sceneGraphLocation parameter is empty, warnings are logged by the Geolib3 Runtime.

  • ID 427353 - NetworkMaterialEdit nodes support editing of network materials that were created by NetworkMaterialCreate nodes only, not network materials that were created with legacy shading nodes in the classic node graph context.

  • ID 423341 - In a NetworkMaterialEdit node graph, connections can be displayed incorrectly if a node's name begins with a number.

  • ID 410474 - In a NetworkMaterialCreate context, shading nodes appear to shake during view state changes if the node's width is adjusted.

  • ID 402064 - In a ShadingGroup node graph, the connection between a Dot node and a shading node port can be wrongly colored in some cases.

  • ID 269449 - Choosing Edit Shader Parameters from the main wrench menu of Material nodes does not show wrench buttons next to shader parameters. This can be worked around by toggling the edit flag on the node. (This issue is a regression in Katana 2.5v1.)

  • ID 199304 - The namespace parameter on Material nodes wrongly allows the insertion of Unicode codepoints outside the ASCII range.

  • ID 191052 - Katana does not have any support for the texture reference object workflows of V-Ray for Maya.

Parameter Expressions

  • ID 188533 - Expressions linked to non-local parameters on not previously edited Material nodes can't be evaluated.

  • ID 105434 / BZ 47520 - Reference Expressions may not refer to dynamic parameters such as shader parameters.

  • ID 60457 / BZ 31790 - Setting an array or group parameter to an expression results in an invalid expression. Upon setting a valid expression (for example, an evaluation of an equivalent parameter on another node using getParam), the parameter is not immediately updated. To workaround this issue, close and reopen the parameter, or flush caches while the node is not edited.

Rendering

  • ID 381284 - The 3Delight renderer plug-in makes use of source material locations rather than resolved material attributes as a means of de-duplication. This can result in material data being lost when excluding material locations from the Render Working Set during a Live Render session.

  • ID 344118 - (Windows only) When installing Katana and opting to install the bundled version of 3Delight, the installation of 3Delight is made by modifying system-wide environment variables such as KATANA_RESOURCES. Thereafter, launching any version of Katana will pick up this installation of 3Delight, which may be incompatible with the version of Katana being launched.

    Note:  This issue does not affect Linux, where a bundled 3Delight installation is tied to its corresponding Katana installation.

  • ID 176598 - Use of nodes that modify Graph State Variables in Interactive Render Filters is not currently supported.

  • ID 74799 / BZ 36926 - The rendererSettings > displayOptions parameter of a RenderOutputDefine node for the PRMan renderer, shown when its type parameter is set to 'raw', cannot be set using the Parameters tab.

  • ID 70217 / BZ 36176 - The 2D node Disk Render Upstream Render Outputs option does not use the batch render method, batchRender, for upstream render nodes, instead using diskRender.

  • ID 70016 / BZ 36137 - Rendering repeatedly with a large number of AOVs consumes more and more memory, possibly leading to a crash when running out of memory.

  • ID 12517 / BZ 16168 - Only one Monitor tab may display the results of a Preview Render. The use of multiple Monitor tabs is not currently supported.

UI

  • ID 381692 - (Windows only) When logging out and logging back in again, the colors in the UI are incorrect. For example, certain parts of certain types of tabs may appear with a white background color. (This issue is a regression in Katana 3.1v1, possibly caused by QTBUG-52728 - Paint bug and palette errors after some events in Windows)

  • ID 373702 - Clicking in the Viewport and pressing a shortcut whilst the mouse is hovered in another widget will still send the event back to the 'focused' Viewport widget, for shortcuts where the widget hovered over does not handle the shortcut.

  • ID 208802 - Closing the Histogram tab after use leaves the Monitor tab unable to display rendered images.

  • ID 123558 / BZ 50911 - When changing an array parameter's tuple count/size, any corresponding attributes are not properly updated in the Attributes tab.

  • ID 112544 / BZ 49051 - The Viewer tab may lose sync with the Scene Graph tab when changes to expansion state are interrupted.

  • ID 107038 / BZ 47853 - Indication of attribute source nodes (such as the yellow 'glow' in the Node Graph tab) is unavailable as of Katana 2.0v1.

  • ID 71965 / BZ 36691 - State badges are currently shown for attribute values of dynamic array child parameters, even though only their parent array parameter should appear with a state badge.

  • ID 65347 / BZ 34949 - Using Compiz can lead to text fields not receiving focus events correctly due to an incompatibility between Compiz and Qt. Depending on your configuration, disabling Compiz "desktop effects" may resolve the problem.

Miscellaneous

  • ID 337653 - Katana logs deprecation warnings when loading the PyMockAsset, PyMultiMockAsset, and PyMockFileSeq shipping example Asset API plug-ins.

  • ID 218742 - (Windows only) Katana must be installed to a path no longer than ~140 characters. Attempting to install to a longer path results in an unintuitive error: "The system cannot find the path specified."

  • ID 84326 / BZ 40709 - The Alembic library does not support multiple process or thread access to an Alembic file. This means that a crash occurs when modifying an Alembic file outside Katana, while it's loaded in an open Katana scene. To avoid this, you must Flush Caches before attempting to update any modified Alembic files.

  • ID 80738 / BZ 39261 - Operations that lock and unlock nodes do not currently create entries in the Undo History, which can lead to an incorrect node graph state when undoing and redoing operations.

  • ID 70196 / BZ 36170 - Control keys (notably arrow) keys do not function as expected in shell mode.