Katana 3.2v4 Release Notes

Release Date

23 January 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 3.2

These release notes describe changes from Katana 3.2v3 to 3.2v4.

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 86310 / BZ 41764 - Support for custom tile locations has been added.

    Previously, the "tile_x_y." prefix was always prepended to the file name of the tiles. Now, the tile path can be customized by defining the following environment variable:

    KATANA_TILE_FILENAME

    These are the wildcards that can be used:

    • @STEM@
    • @EXT@ (includes dot)
    • @COLUMN@
    • @ROW@
    • @COLUMNS@
    • @ROWS@
    • @DEFAULT@ (equivalent to tile_@COLUMN@_@ROW@.@STEM@@EXT@)

    For example, the following setup would append the tile column and row, as well as the total number of columns and rows, to the tile location:

    export KATANA_TILE_FILENAME="@STEM@_(@COLUMN@,@ROW@)_@COLUMNS@x@ROWS@@EXT@"

  • TP 386749 - It is now possible to drag and drop a NetworkMaterialCreate node onto a MaterialAssign node. Doing so will set the materialAssign parameter of the MaterialAssign node to a Python-based parameter expression that evaluates to the path of the scene graph location that is created by the NetworkMaterialCreate node.

  • While hovering over an existing connection of a NetworkMaterialCreate node graph, pressing the dot key '.' will now create a Dot node in between the connected ports.

  • The NodegraphAPI.GetNodeContext() function, which was introduced in Katana 3.2v2, has been renamed to NodegraphAPI.GetNodeGraphContext().

  • TP 415668 - It is now possible to use the Adopt Selected Node Graph Node command in the menu of the materialAssign parameter of a MaterialAssign node with a NetworkMaterialCreate node selected. Doing so will set the materialAssign parameter to a Python-based parameter expression that evaluates to the path of the scene graph location that is created by the NetworkMaterialCreate node.

  • TP 415722 - Support for multi-part EXR files has been added to Katana's exrtilestitch command-line tool. Previously, only the first part of every file would be stitched together into the output file.

  • It is now possible to allow users to create instances of custom SuperTools in the context of NetworkMaterialCreate and ShadingGroup nodes, by adding the NodegraphAPI.Context.NetworkMaterial string as a node flavor to the SuperTool node type in question, e.g. NodegraphAPI.AddNodeFlavor('MyCustomSuperTool', NodegraphAPI.Context.NetworkMaterial).

    It is also now possible to hide shading node types from the Tab key node creation menu inside of NetworkMaterialCreate and ShadingGroup nodes, by removing the NodegraphAPI.Context.NetworkMaterial string as a node flavor from the renderer-specific shading node type, e.g. NodegraphAPI.RemoveNodeFlavor('DlShadingNode', NodegraphAPI.Context.NetworkMaterial).

Bug Fixes

Network Material UI

  • TP 386963 - The Display As Dot parameter had no effect on the appearance of Dot nodes within the NetworkMaterialCreate node graph.

  • TP 405898 - Clicking in the hit box of a shading node's Filter would focus it even if the hit area was hidden by another node.

  • TP 416297 - When hovering over the connection of a selected node in a NetworkMaterialCreate node graph, and pressing the Delete key to delete the node, Katana crashed.

  • TP 416306 - When creating nodes inside a NetworkMaterialCreate node graph, the new nodes could briefly appear away from the mouse cursor position.

  • TP 417167 - In the NetworkMaterialCreate node graph, attempting to collapse multiple nodes that share an upstream connection into a ShadingGroup caused a Python Error to be printed to the console, and in some cases, also caused Katana to crash.

  • TP 417213 - Renaming ports on a VariableSwitch node would not update the node's associated patterns parameter.

Other Bug Fixes

  • TP 249651 - When Katana panes are resized, a white overlay appears indicating the potential layout. This overlay was not behaving correctly on certain window managers.

  • TP 312618 - When tile-stitching on Windows, Python exceptions were raised.

  • TP 381977 - In Qt 4, the Katana's QApplication was able to process KeyPress events before Shortcut events were triggered. This allowed Katana to handle UnfocusedKeyEvent events before Shortcut events. Since Qt 5, KeyPress events do not precede Shortcut events, therefore some tabs were not allowed to process events when a second tab had gained focus and such tab had registered actions. In order to maintain the same Qt 4 behavior, Katana now synthesizes a KeyPress event out of the Shortcut event as an attempt to process the event as an UnfocusedKeyEvent event.

  • 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 was raised. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.2v1.)

  • TP 411247 - Hydra warnings printed to the terminal could display paths relative to internal build environments, rather than absolute paths.

  • TP 412369 - When Katana was launched as a different user on Windows, detached processes would fail to start. This was affecting Katana's cleanup process (katanaCleanup.exe), as well as external render processes. Also, running Katana as a scheduled task would cause the same issues.

  • TP 415630 - In Windows, the .katana file associations were not functioning, causing Katana to launch with an empty project.

  • TP 415801 - When adding a parameter with multiple values to an OutputChannelDefine node, e.g. a filterwidth parameter to a PrmanOutputChannelDefine, the resulting parameter was wrongly created as a number parameter instead of a number array parameter. (This issue was a regression in Katana 3.1v1.)

  • TP 418460 - When editing a promoted drop-down parameter that provides a StringAttribute, Material nodes set to 'edit material' downstream failed to reflect these edits for some renderer plug-ins.

  • TP 419908 - The exrtilestitch command-line tool is now used for tile-stitching files whose output type is set to color. Previously, the tool was only used with the raw output type.

  • TP 420580 - The External Software page in the Katana Developer Guide wrongly listed the version of USD being used in Katana 3.2 as version 0.8. (Katana 3.2 is actually using USD 19.05.)

  • TP 420667 - The FnKatImport.SetDebugBinaries() Python API function never had any effect in commercial Katana, and has now been marked as deprecated.

Known Issues

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 appear to shake during view state 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 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.