Connecting to a Renderer

Using 3Delight

The 3Delight renderer and plug-in are bundled with Katana. No additional configuration is necessary after installation.

Article:  For more information about downloading and installing the 3Delight renderer and plug-in for Katana, please refer to the Knowledge Base article: 3Delight for Katana

Using Other Renderers

Katana is designed to be renderer agnostic. A number of third-party renderer plug-ins are available, supporting renderers such as RenderMan, Arnold, V-Ray and 3Delight.

Before trying to connect Katana to a renderer, make sure the renderer is installed correctly. Consult the manual that accompanies the renderer for details.

Note:  For more information on writing a renderer plug-in for Katana utilizing the Rendering API, see the developers' documentation that accompanies the installation. The developers' documentation can be accessed through the Help > Developer Guide menu option inside Katana.

Katana uses the KATANA_RESOURCES environment variable to find the renderer plug-ins it needs.

Changing the Default Renderer

The default renderer is specified using the DEFAULT_RENDERER environment variable. For example, if you’re using a bash shell:

export DEFAULT_RENDERER=dl

This default is used by nodes and tabs that require renderer-specific information in instances where the renderer is not specified by the recipe at the currently viewed node. If this environment variable is not set, dl is used by default.

Note:  If the requested renderer plug-in is not available, Katana displays warning messages, and in certain cases, error messages.