14 March 2025
These release notes describe changes from Katana 6.0v5 to 6.0v6.
For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 6.0 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 6.0 document.
The Katana Developer Guide has been upgraded to include a copy-to-clipboard button for all code snippets embedded on a page; allowing for quick and easy access to syntax examples. Additionally, any node type name referenced in the Katana Developer Guide hyperlinks to the appropriate pages in the Katana Reference Guide, located on Foundry's learn website, to ensure that all learning content shared across various sections are accessible.
ID 411866 - Documentation was added to the Katana Developer Guide for some notable options supported by getOption() and setOption() in various Viewer classes.
ID 577960 - When loading a USD stage through the UsdIn node, an Asset Resolver Context can be specified by setting the assetResolverContext parameter. If no assetResolverContext is specified, a default Asset Resolver Context is used based on the Asset Resolver type which is used to handle the asset specified in the fileName parameter.
The Katana User Guide PDF is now included in the Katana distribution. Previously, it was only available from Foundry's website.
ID 333287 - A button was added to activate face selection mode, allowing users to choose between Front Faces Selection (selecting only front-facing faces) or X-ray Selection (selecting both front and back faces).
ID 569289 - Within the Snapping dropdown in the Viewer tab, the Lights, Cameras, and Locators option has been updated to Lights, Cameras, Locators, and Rigs and when selected, allows for snapping to rig locations.
EULA Updated.
ID 542748 - Holding the Control ('Ctrl') key while deleting a node now stops any upstream or downstream nodes from being reconnected through the deleted node.
The module level __version__ dunder name has been added to the Katana module. It returns a conventional version string in the form '<major>.<minor>.<patch>'. For example, for Katana 8.0v2, it reports '8.0.2'.
Katana.documentVersion module attribute has been introduced, which reports the internal document version in Katana used to determine which upgrade scripts to run when loading the Katana project in a future release.
The new attribute is identical to Katana.version, which was deemed as ambiguous and is planned for deprecation in Katana 8.5v1.
ID 582063 - When the KATANA_MOVE_FILES_ON_RENDER_COMPLETE environment variable is set to 1, completed renders are now sent to the output destination from the temp directory via a move operation, rather than the default copy.
ID 587599 - When calling methods from the NodeGraphAPI module that subsequently called GetAllConnectedInputs, such as NodegraphAPI.Util.GetAllContributingNodes(), the nodes returned would not include nodes which were contained within Group or ShadingGroup nodes if the input and output port names were the same.
ID 227711 - When Katana was initialized, a spurious config file was created at ~/.config/dev/null/conf. The file was reported to have caused licensing and permissions problems, sometimes during Batch Renders or Preview Renders. On Windows systems, a HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\nul was created in the Windows Registry.
ID 590194 - When using LD_PRELOAD to load an external jemalloc library, Katana would fail to open. The included jemalloc library has been upgraded to 5.3.0 and the library (and SONAME) is now suffixed with _fn to avoid collisions with the same library loaded through LD_PRELOAD. The symbols within the included jemalloc have been prefixed with fnje_ to improve uniqueness.
ID 528082 - When running Katana in a remote desktop session, transforming an object near or beyond the viewport boundaries caused the mouse cursor and the object to jump in the manipulated direction. An option called continuousManipulation under Preferences > viewer menu was introduced. This option is on by default and can be changed while in a remote desktop session to prevent objects from moving beyond the Viewer.
ID 583978 - In the Viewer tab, when the Validate Locations checkbox in the camera picker popup was toggled on and off, while the viewed Node Graph did not include nodes contributing to the 3D scene, an exception was raised.
ID 585904 - When the viewed node graph did not include any contributing Geolib-based node, the Look Through Lights and Cameras menu dropdown in the Viewer tab could present a permanent spinning wheel, wrongly indicating that the scene was still being cooked.
ID 577493 - When Callbacks were called during an asset publish, they could be called in the wrong order and provide incorrect data.
ID 95732 / BZ 44699 - When using the pixel probe tool in the Monitor tab while the active AOV had no ID data, no location was available instead of falling back to the ID information in the primary AOV.
ID 526099 - Promoted parameters were not staying connected to the source widget when the parent Group node was being converted to other Group types. Promoted parameters will now stay connected to their source node parameter.
ID 536014 - When changing a connection to a port with a promoted parameter, the changes were not always reflected in the Material Interface in the Parameters tab of the NetworkMaterialCreate or NetworkMaterialEdit nodes.
ID 550113 - When baking a Material through the UsdMaterialBake node, shader parameters promoted to the material interface while also having a shader input connection would cause an error to occur in the terminal. In this scenario, Katana will author the shader connection, and write the material interface with a default value on the exported USD Layer.
ID 447281 - Parentheses in CEL value expression would disappear on the node's copy and paste.
ID 266120 - When the state of a parameter was modified through the setUseNodeDefault Python call, the Parameter state badge would not update.
ID 593443 - Float_Vector parameters would crash when set to expressions. Similarly, a Float_Vector parameter set with valid parameter expressions to another Float_Vector parameter would incorrectly raise an error.
ID 514722 - (Linux only) When repeatedly opening and closing Viewer tabs, Katana would occasionally crash.
ID 586359 - Interacting with the Material Interface, such as collapsing and expanding pages was slower while performing a Live Render.
ID 592061 - When manipulating a scene during Live rendering, Renderboot process could crash.
ID 595435 - When changes to the Viewer camera were applied (e.g. panning or rotating in the Viewer) during a Foresight+ Live Render session, Node Graph traversal and recooks could occur even when Live Render From Viewer Camera was not enabled.
ID 580541 - Deleted Graph State Variables were not refreshed in the Graph State Variables tool bar dropdown and persisted until an update was enforced.
ID 587667 - When the sliders in number parameters were clicked while holding Ctrl (which toggles the parameter's state badge), an exception would be raised and the state badge would not be toggled.
ID 587673 - Interaction area in InteractiveIconTabBar has been adjusted to fit the icon more accurately.
ID 592670 - When an array parameter was defined in a GenericAssign Args file with its size XML attribute set to 0, the array would still be created with one element, disallowing the definition of empty array parameters.
ID 594521 - Menu items would be drawn incorrectly when the working set Context menu in the Scene Explorer tab was shown.
ID 553366 - Material locations imported via the UsdIn node would not be created correctly if they were composed through a Specializes composition arc at an ancestor level above the Material Group location.
ID 577631 - When importing a USD file through a UsdIn node that has unresolved <UDIM> texture file paths, warning messages were thrown during rendering and the relevant file path attributes were not populated.
ID 562280 - UsdMaterialBake did not support Resolved Materials. A new documentation page has been added to the developer guide under the Resolved Materials heading within the Plugins > KatanaUSDPlugins > UsdExport page.
ID 589027 - The Attributes tab doesn't currently update animated attributes or properties values from an incoming USD scene. Flushing caches resolves the issue.
ID 580249 - Manipulating transformations for both Geolib and USD locations/prims at the same time (driven by their respective transformation nodes set to interactive) is currently not supported.
ID 587519 - When opening a new scene while the Parameters tab's Included Outputs floating menu is still active for a render node, errors are printed to the terminal.
ID 588881 - The pivotTranslate parameter on the UsdTransformEdit node currently have no effect.
ID 587515 - The Centre of Interest manipulator is currently not supported in conjunction with USD prims.
ID 586965 - USD's stitch method for stitching layers doesn't retain blocked attributes.
ID 579376 -
Currently, Pattern-Based Collections does not support the use of the include and exclude widgets in conjunction with the membershipExpression widget on the UsdCollection node. This is due to a known issue with USD 24.05. NOTE: More info can be found on the USD thread: https://forum.aousd.org/t/problems-with-pattern-based-collections/1197/7. Katana's Pattern-Based Collection widget computes collection membership using membership expressions, therefore it does not currently handle relationship-mode collections correctly (statement true for USD 24.05).
| 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 4.5+ (see note below) | |
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.
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