19 September 2016
Pixar’s RenderMan, Solid Angle’s Arnold and Chaos Group’s V-Ray are each supported by plug-ins directly from those companies.
For Pixar’s RenderMan, please contact Pixar to get RenderMan Studio for Katana (also called RfK). You also need to install the relevant version of the RenderMan renderer (RenderMan Pro Server)
For Arnold, please contact Solid Angle to get KtoA. This includes both the Arnold renderer as well as the Katana plug-in.
For V-Ray, please contact Chaos Group to get V-Ray for Katana. This includes the V-Ray renderer as well as the Katana plug-in.
All queries regarding third-party plug-ins should be directed to the relevant provider.
The Katana installation includes legacy plug-ins for PRMan 17.0 and Arnold 4.2, which should be mainly considered as reference to show how a render plug-ins can be implemented. For support of the latest renderer versions and features it is recommended to use the plug-ins provided directly by the relevant vendor company.
Katana 2.1v5 has dependencies on the following third-party libraries:
These libraries are provided in the Katana distribution, in separate directories under $KATANA_ROOT/bin.
An ABI-compatible copy of these libraries needs to reside on your LD_LIBRARY_PATH in order for many of Katana’s plug-ins to run. The Katana application itself uses RPATHs to locate the required libraries.
NOTE: Katana’s wrapper script $KATANA_ROOT/katana appends LD_LIBRARY_PATH to ensure these libraries are visible to Katana plug-ins.
If you manage your own LD_LIBRARY_PATH or wish to expose these libraries to plug-ins by some other means, you can call the Katana binary directly using: $KATANA_ROOT/bin/katanaBin
TP 230675 - The indentation of scene graph locations in the Scene Graph tab and in the table of objects of edited GafferThree nodes now scales with the application font size preference. As part of this, disclosure triangles for scene graph locations that contain children are scaled as well.
Scene graph locations in the Scene Graph tab and in the table of objects of edited GafferThree nodes are now shown with alternating background colors.
TP 66331 / BZ 35346 - When defining arbitrary geometry attributes following the geometry.arbitrary.<groupAttrName>.<attrName> convention, warnings are printed to the render log if the number of values in a geometry.arbitrary.<groupAttrName>.value or geometry.arbitrary.<groupAttrName>.index attribute does not match the required number of values. The text of those warnings has been rewritten to be more helpful.
TP 194321 - Node connections in a nested LiveGroup were not restored correctly following a change to a Graph State Variable that caused the nested LiveGroup to be reloaded.
TP 229823 - Progress messages displayed while baking a Look File would include no location name while processing locations that did not exist in the reference scene.
TP 230656 - Certain CEL statements that contained more than one recursive pattern (e.g. //pony, //*) could incorrectly match locations.
TP 231260 - When choosing commands from the Pin submenu in the context menu of a location in the Scene Graph tab, an exception was raised.
TP 232376 - The FnGeolibCookInterfaceUtils::resolveFileNamesWithinGroup() function was not thread-safe, and could trigger incorrect results or crashes if called on multiple threads.
TP 232503 - When reloading LiveGroup nodes from their respective sources, additional array parameter entries were wrongly discarded, and removed array parameter entries were wrongly restored.
TP 232524 - Katana would hang when resizing scene graph columns beyond their individual width constraints.
TP 232531 - When attempting to use the Parameter_setValueDict() function of the NodegraphAPI.Xio module without importing that module first, an exception was raised.
When attempting to import everything from the NodegraphAPI.Xio module using a wildcard import, an exception was raised.
TP 232619 - When deleting items from InteractiveRenderFilters, LookFileManager, MaterialStack or PonyStack nodes, exceptions were raised.
TP 208802 - Closing the Histogram tab after use leaves the Monitor tab unable to display rendered images.
TP 207623 - When entering a single number only in a Backdrop node, that number is not preserved when saving a Katana project or when copying and pasting that node.
TP 191052 - Katana does not have any support for the texture reference object work-flows of V-Ray for Maya.
TP 188533 - Expressions linked to non-local parameters on not previously edited Material nodes can't be evaluated.
TP 176598 - Use of nodes that modify Graph State Variables in Interactive Render Filters is not currently supported.
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 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 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 not yet implemented in Katana 2.
TP 105434 / BZ 47520 - Reference Expressions may not refer to dynamic parameters such as shader parameters.
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 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 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.
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 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.
For a workaround, the UpdatePrmanSettingNodes shelf script can be used. The script, available in the PRMan17 shelf, creates an AttributeScript node that converts display options, set using string attributes, to group attributes.
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 71954 / BZ 36663 - It is not currently possible to sort notifications in the Notifications popup window.
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.
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.
TP 65242 / BZ 34870 - Katana doesn't support render output directory creation for shadow, merge and script output types.
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.
TP 56545 / BZ 28549 - Main menu commands that create nodes, notably File > Import..., File > Import LiveGroup..., and Help > I want a pony, do not create the nodes in a Group or LiveGroup node that has been entered in a Node Graph tab, instead they create the nodes in the root level of the node graph document.
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.
Copyright © 2016 The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd.