Release Date

21 October 2019

Previous Releases

• Katana 3.2v1 Release Notes

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 3.2

These release notes describe changes from Katana 3.2v1 to 3.2v2.

For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 3.2 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 3.2 document.

Feature Enhancements

• TP 116433 / BZ 49685 - Keyboard shortcuts for cycling through the list of interactive outputs/layers/AOVs that are displayed in the Monitor tab have been added:

  • Ctrl+Page Down selects the next available AOV, stopping at the last available AOV.
  • Ctrl+Page Up selects the previous available AOV, stopping at the first available AOV.

• TP 280477 - It is now possible to copy the textual representation of selected items from deferred group tree widgets in the Attributes tab to the clipboard. This type of widget is used, for example, for the lightList group attribute at /root/world and for the material.nodes group attribute on material locations that represent Network Materials.

• TP 283923 - The resizing of item view widgets of various types of nodes in the Parameters tab has been revised to require less precision by replacing tiny corner triangle widgets with large draggable horizontal and vertical dividers. In particular, this change applies to the following types of nodes: GafferThree, Importomatic, LookFileManager, LookFileLightAndConstraintActivator, NetworkMaterial, and all types of nodes that are implemented using PackageSuperToolAPI.

• 3Delight has been upgraded to version 1.6.6. For more information, refer to the 3Delight Cloud Changelog.

• TP 408121 - We've made the following changes to header files we ship with in the Katana installation directory:

  • USD header files have been moved from include/pxr to external/FnUSD/include/pxr.
  • Boost header files are now shipped in external/FnBoost/include/boost.
  • TBB header files are now shipped in external/FnTBB/include/tbb.

Network Material UI

• Nodes inside of a NetworkMaterialCreate node can now be snapped to a grid, respecting the nodegraph/snapToGrid preference, similar to nodes in the regular node graph context.

• The Fit Backdrop Node to Selected Nodes command in the Edit menu of the Node Graph tab can now be used in the NetworkMaterialCreate context.

• Off-Screen Flag support has been added to the NetworkMaterialCreate context, similar to the regular Node Graph context: when edited, viewed, or error nodes are present in the Node Graph tab, but out of view, a blue, green, or red arrow displays on the edge of the view pointing towards that node. Clicking the flag will center the view on that node.

• The input and output side bars inside of ShadingGroup or NetworkMaterialCreate nodes can now be collapsed to a minimal state.

• In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, Shift+Middle-Click drag now allows the user to drag references to specific ports into other tabs, such as the Python tab.

• In the NetworkMaterialCreate ShadingGroup context, right-clicking and choosing the Rename Port command from the context menu of a port on a sidebar now displays a text box large enough for the user to see and edit the whole name of the port.

• Shading nodes in a NetworkMaterialCreate context will glow red if they have invalid port connections.

• TP 402034 - Selected shading nodes within a NetworkMaterialCreate node can now be collapsed into a ShadingGroup by pressing the G keyboard shortcut or by choosing Edit > Collapse Selected into Group in the Node Graph tab. Similarly, selected ShadingGroup nodes can now be "exploded", moving their contents into their parent node, by choosing Edit > Explode Selected Groups or by pressing the U key.

• When copying a node from outside a NetworkMaterialCreate context and then pasting it into a NetworkMaterialCreate context, the pasted node now initially shows as fully collapsed, to more closely mirror the appearance of the node in the source context.

• Selection borders around selected nodes in NetworkMaterialCreate nodes have been tweaked to remain visible when zooming out very far.

• In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, the anchor point of nodes has been shifted from the top left of a node to the center of a node's name.

Bug Fixes

Network Material UI

• TP 382748 - In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, when the user zoomed as far out (or in) as physically possible, the Node Graph view would continue panning despite the zoom level not changing.

• TP 403364 - When working with Redshift shading nodes within NetworkMaterialCreate or ShadingGroup nodes, an extra blank page was created under the parameters page, and when trying to expand a subpage below that page, the page was immediately collapsed down to the blank page.

• TP 403878 - Within a NetworkMaterialCreate context, tooltips would activate for shading nodes even if covered by another shading node.

• TP 404063 - When adding or removing the _hide node flavor for a particular type of node using the NodegraphAPI functions AddNodeFlavor() and RemoveNodeFlavor() from shelf item scripts or the Python tab, node creation menus in the same Katana session did not respect the change, still showing or omitting the particular node type in the respective menu.

• TP 404606 - In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, if a ShadingGroup was collapsed so that only connected ports were visible, then entering the ShadingGroup and connecting a port from a node to the output sidebar would crash Katana.

• TP 404935 - In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, when choosing one of the 3Delight shaders in the node creation menu for which multiple nodes are created, those nodes were placed incorrectly. As part of this fix, we've added support for renderer plug-ins to return multiple nodes in a node creation menu callback.

• TP 405232 - When creating network materials, invalid connections between shading nodes would make all of the parameters for the downstream shading node revert to empty string parameters.

• TP 405661 - When connecting or disconnecting a shading node port in a NetworkMaterialCreate node, the shading node was wrongly collapsed, hiding all ports.

• TP 406214 - In the NetworkMaterialCreate context, forming or removing connections form an edited shading node caused a noticeable performance drop in Katana.

• TP 406849 - When creating multiple nodes in the NetworkMaterialCreate context, if the pointer was over a node, it would deselect all but the hovered node when initially placing them in the node graph.

Katana Developer Guide

• TP 404062 - The Overview page for writing render plug-ins in the Katana Developer Guide contained some out-of-date information regarding the Live Render Control tab, which was removed in Katana 2.5v1.

• TP 405579 - The Katana version number in the Katana Developer Guide was hard to read due to insufficient contrast between the text and background colors.

Other Bug Fixes

• TP 208596 - When saving a Katana layout to a file on disk, and restoring the layout, the maximized state was not stored/restored correctly. As part of a fix for this, a new showMaximized attribute is now stored as part of Katana layout XML files.

• TP 253728 - When Katana layouts were saved, the geometry of the panels was being rounded to the nearest tenth, leading to undesirable differences in pane sizes when restoring such layouts.

• TP 304350 - When Katana layouts were saved, the geometry of the panels was being rounded to the nearest tenth, leading to undesirable differences in pane sizes when restoring such layouts.

• TP 386578 - A red error glow would remain on a NetworkMaterialCreate node even after removing the invalid connection within the NetworkMaterialCreate that caused the error.

• TP 388426 - When setting the view and edit flags on 2D/Image* nodes, such as ImageRead or ImageBrightness, that were not connected to a valid input, an OverflowError exception was raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v3.)

• TP 389565 - When batch rendering a Katana project whose root node was named other than "rootNode", an AttributeError exception was raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

• TP 391727 - When attempting to edit Conditional Visibility Options or Conditional Locking Options for a user parameter for which more than one conditional option rule is defined, a TypeError exception was raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

• TP 393138 - Rendering with many AOVs slowed down UI performance, and a significant amount of memory got leaked. (The memory leak has existed since Katana 1.0v1, but was exacerbated with changes in Katana 3.1v1.)

  As part of the performance improvements, the KATANA_CATALOG_RECT_UPDATE_BUFFER_SIZE environment variable was substituted by a new environment variable named KATANA_CATALOG_REFRESH_RATE. The new environment variable sets up the frequency rate (in Hertz) in which the Monitor tab will display rectangle updates that have been received from the render plug-in. Previously, the number of refreshes was determined by the number of rectangles updates. Previously, by default, 128 rectangle updates would trigger a repaint, which could be too few in some cases, or too many in other cases. The default value for the new KATANA_CATALOG_REFRESH_RATE environment variable is 100 (Hertz).

  NOTE: A general catalog memory issue remains. See TP 70016 in the Known Issues section.

• TP 397080 - The queuing of Katana EventModule events within (or otherwise during the processing of) Collapsed Event Handlers resulted in incomplete event processing and errors of the following form:

  [ERROR python.root]: A RuntimeError occurred in "EventModuleUI.py": dictionary changed size during iteration
  

  (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v5.)

• TP 397310 - Geometry was prevented from drawing if arbitrary data other than st or displayColor were invalid. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.0v5.)

• TP 402631 - Symbols in OpScriptLua.so and OpScriptLuaJIT.so were not hidden correctly, leading to crashes when using custom versions of Lua for studio-specific tools.

• TP 404404 - Library files were missing from the Windows installer for the following libraries: Curl, Python 2.7, GLEW, and OpenSSL.

• TP 404587 - The source file label below the file parameter of ImageRead nodes wrongly appeared with a dark grey text color instead of a light grey text color, making the label impossibly hard to read. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

• TP 404622 - When running a shelf item script that raises an exception after reloading the sys Python module, Katana crashed. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

• TP 404869 - Our shipped Python bindings for USD's pxr modules could conflict with custom modules. To address this, we moved our USD Python bindings to fnUsd/pxr, and only add fnUsd to the PYTHONPATH environment variable if the pxr module is not available at the end of Katana's startup.

• TP 404875 - Alembic assets with arbitrary geometry data of type string were not imported correctly by the AlembicIn Op.

• TP 404910 - When setting the nodegraph/allowKeylessTabletInteraction preference to No, panning in the Node Graph tab stopped working. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.2v1.)

• TP 405209 - Warning messages were not consistent between Windows and Linux when loading directory paths into a LiveGroup node's source parameter.

• TP 405262 - When clicking the view selection button at the top of the parameter interface of many 2D nodes, an exception was raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

• TP 406453 - In order to address Boost binaries incompatibilities, Boost shared libraries are now namespaced as Fnboost.

• TP 407048 - (Windows only) Exporting a node as a macro would raise a warning, and the macro would only become available after a restart of Katana. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.2v1.)

Known Issues

Hydra Viewer

• TP 394851 - The Monitor Front Buffer layer in the Viewer (Hydra) tab does not work without a Monitor tab open in the main window layout as well.

Live Groups

• TP 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).

• TP 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.

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

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

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

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

Materials

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

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

• TP 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.

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

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

Parameter Expressions

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

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

• TP 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.

Qt 5

• TP 356345 - Partially covering the Hydra Viewport with a floating tab will cause it to repaint continuously.

Rendering

• TP 410428 - When starting a debug output render by choosing the Debug > Open [renderer name] [file extension] Output in External Editor command in the context menu of a node, an exception is raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.2v1.)

• TP 409237 - (Windows only) Error messages may be printed to the terminal when changing frames quickly during a Live Render when the application/restartLiveRenderOnTimeChange preference is set to Yes.

• TP 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.

• TP 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 does not affect Linux, where a bundled 3Delight installation is tied to its corresponding Katana installation.

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

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

• TP 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.

• TP 94052 / BZ 44199 - The Repeat Previous Render menu command only works on renders started from a 3D node's context menu.

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

Widgets

• TP 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.

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

• TP 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

• TP 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.

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

• TP 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."

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

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

• TP 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.

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