Search Tips

Search is based on keyword.

`Ex: "Procedures"`

Do not search with natural language

`Ex: "How do I write a new procedure?"`

Give Feedback Support Portal

# Release Notes for Katana 2.5v6

# Release Date

1 June 2017

# System Requirements

## Qualified Operating Systems

- Windows 7 64-bit
- Linux CentOS/RHEL 6

## Hardware Requirements

- A graphics card which supports OpenGL shader model 4.0

# Documentation Improvements

- The Online Help's Environment Variables topic has been moved to the Developer Guide. Variables are now categorised, and read-only variables (such as KATANA_RELEASE) are distinguished from user-configurable variables.
- Content from the Online Help's NodegraphAPI topic has been integrated into the Developer Guide. This brings together descriptions, examples and API references.
- The API reference for Parameter objects has been split into sections covering different parameter types and use cases.

# Bug Fixes

- TP 99555 / BZ 46405 - After removing an active Interactive Render Filter (IRF), subsequent interactive renders failed with an exception.

- TP 251610 - OpScript: Creating a data attribute by passing an empty Lua table to an FnAttribute constructor could corrupt the Lua interpreter and subsequently crash Katana. This bug affected expressions like DoubleAttribute({[0.0] = {}}) and DoubleAttribute({}).

- TP 252829 - Katana could crash during interactive renders due to data races in the destruction of objects that were part of connections between a renderer plug-in and Katana's Catalog system.

- TP 253815 - Modifications of Interactive Render Filters (IRFs) during a Live Render did not affect the render.

- TP 267710 - Ops that operate on pre-existing descendants of children that they create using copyLocationToChild() or replaceChildren(), failed to do so under certain cooking conditions.

- TP 267885 - The scale of Viewer manipulators was affected by the camera position and orientation. This serious regression was introduced in Katana 2.5v5.

- TP 268660 - (Windows only) Katana would crash if it exhausted available image memory and tried writing image data to disk.

- TP 268665 - When deleting Group nodes, their send and return ports (which correspond to input and output ports) still pointed to the nodes that they were previously a part of. This could lead to crashes due to dangling pointers when rewiring the connections inside of Group nodes, for example as part of bypassing LiveGroup nodes.

- TP 268746 - Custom columns in the Scene Graph tab did not show single-value integer, double or float attributes.

- TP 270548 - Environment variables in File Browser Quick Links (provided by the environment variable KATANA_FILEBROWSER_QUICKLINKS) were not resolved, resulting in invalid paths.

- TP 273566 - When attempting to render to an output file with a relative filename, e.g. foo.exr, to the current working directory, the render failed with an error message saying that a directory could not be created.

- TP 274272 - The parameter UI of LookFileManager Override nodes that rely on incoming scene data (such as a Material node in edit mode) was not correctly populated.

# Known Issues

- TP 272409 - The File Browser's file sequence listings are populated according to a Foundry standard, rather than using the findSequence() method of the current File Sequence Plug-in. Files that are part of a sequence according to the File Sequence Plug-in, but not the Foundry standard, appear as individual files rather than a sequence.

- 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 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 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 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.

- 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.

Save