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# Katana 6.5v6 Release Notes

# Release Date

14 March 2025

# Previous Releases

- Katana 6.5v5 Release Notes

# What's New in Katana 6.5

These release notes describe changes from Katana 6.5v5 to 6.5v6.

For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 6.5 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 6.5 document.

# New Features

## Documentation

- 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.

# Feature Enhancements

## Asset Management

- 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.

## Documentation

- The Katana User Guide PDF is now included in the Katana distribution. Previously, it was only available from Foundry's website.

## Hydra Viewer

- 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).

## Performance

- ID 585190 - A protectedDepth parameter has been added to the RenderSettings node, available only when the Continual cache eviction mode is used.

  Cache entries associated with scene graph locations whose path depth is less or equal than the configured protected depth will never be evicted from the cache.

  For instance, if set to `3`, locations such as `/root` (depth 1), `/root/world` (depth 2), and `/root/world/geo` (depth 3) would be protected from cache eviction, but not `/root/world/geo/teapot` (depth 4).

- ID 585191 - A protectedPaths array parameter has been added to the RenderSettings node, available only when the Continual cache eviction mode is used.

  Cache entries associated with the configured scene graph location paths will never be evicted from the cache. Ancestors of the configured paths are implicitly protected too.

## Python

- 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.

# Bug Fixes

## Configuration

- 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.

## Network Materials

- 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.

## Node Graph

- ID 447281 - Parentheses in CEL value expression would disappear on the node's copy and paste.

## Parameters

- 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.

## Rendering

- 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.

## UI

- 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 594521 - Menu items would be drawn incorrectly when the working set Context menu in the Scene Explorer tab was shown.

## USD Native

- 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 574861 - Mismatching the expected attributeType based on the previously specified attributeName in the UsdAttributeSet node would generate errors in the message log.

- ID 583517 - Dropping a USD prim path from the Scene Explorer tab onto a form widget which expects a Katana location path, and vice versa, would allow the invalid drop.

- ID 589208 - The UsdSchemaSet node did not show all available Relationship Properties from the schema registry.

- ID 593315 - After changing a prim type, adjusting previously modified attributes would result in error with error messages being logged.

# Known Issues

## Attributes Tab

- ID 589027 - The Attributes tab doesn't currently update animated attributes or properties values from an incoming USD scene. Flushing caches resolves the issue.

## Hydra Viewer

- 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.

## Rendering

- 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.

## USD Native

- 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).

# System Requirements

## Officially Supported Operating Systems

- Windows 10 64-bit or higher
- Linux 64-bit operating system (CentOS/RHEL 7)

## Hardware Requirements

| Minimum | Recommended
--- | --- | ---
CPU | Dual-core processor
Storage | 2.5+ 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)

Note: AMD-based graphics cards are currently not supported.

## 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 RTX 4000

- NVIDIA Quadro RTX A4000

- NVIDIA Quadro RTX A3000

- NVIDIA Quadro P4000

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.