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# Katana 4.5v5 Release Notes

Contents

- Feature Enhancements
- Bug Fixes
- Known Issues
- System Requirements

# Release Date

26 January 2023

# Previous Releases

- Katana 4.5v4 Release Notes

# What's New in Katana 4.5

These release notes describe changes from Katana 4.5v4 to 4.5v5.

For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 4.5 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 4.5 document.

# Feature Enhancements

## API/SDK Changes

- A public method has been added for accessing the current shader program object in a GL manipulator handle: `Foundry::Katana::ViewerUtils::GLManipulatorHandle::getCurrentShaderProgram()`.

## Miscellaneous

- The Foundry End User License Agreement has been updated to reflect new licensing models in Foundry products.

## Performance

- ID 515211 - The computation and memory overhead for 'no-op' scene graph locations in the 'Geolib3-MT' and 'Geolib3-MT (Experimental)' runtimes has been greatly reduced to bring them more in line with the 'Classic' runtime. This can significantly improve scene cook time (and hence render time) and memory usage for recipes in which many Ops with well-defined scope operate on a large input scene.

- `FnGeolibCookInterfaceUtils::resolveFileNamesWithinGroup()` and `FnGeolibCookInterfaceUtils::resolveFileNameInString()`, used in filename resolvers, were slowed down by the repeated creation of a relatively expensive regular expression. The regular expression is now created on initialization.

- The ProfilingMockRenderer render plug-in, bundled in the Examples plug-ins, now also supports Live Renders. In a Live Render session, the render plug-in periodically reports the number of live updates that have been processed.

## Rendering

- ID 518199 - In certain cases, Katana wouldn't respect a non-zero exit code from a renderer plug-in, resulting in a failed render being reported as successful.

- ID 527552 - The Render node now writes the final file path of the render output as a scene graph attribute following a disk render. This is in addition to the temporary file path of the render output, which was already written as a scene graph attribute following a disk render. These attributes are stored in the scene graph at the /root location. The final file path can be found in the attribute hierarchy: renderSettings.outputs.<outputName>.rendererSettings.finalRenderLocation.

# Bug Fixes

## Configuration

- ID 514857 - When the `KATANA_TMPDIR` environment variable is defined by the user, Katana fails to define the `TMPDIR` environment variable that is required internally.

## Network Materials

- ID 512965 - When making a new Network Material node, creating a node within it caused it to jump away from the mouse.

- ID 522918 - Within a NetworkMaterialEdit node, interface config parameters now inherit from upstream materials. Enable states on parameters also correctly inherit.

- ID 527099 - In the NetworkMaterial context, attempting to expose parameters to a ShadingGroup node would fail, raising an error in the console.

## Performance

- ID 510751 - When performing a Preview Render with Profiling, using Geolib3-MT, tracked memory usage could be unreasonably large for some Ops. This was due to the unsigned data type going less than zero and wrapping around. We cannot currently guarantee that a memory allocation's corresponding deallocation will be tracked against the same Op, depending on how and where the memory is allocated, which could lead to what looks like negative memory usage in certain Ops.

- ID 522038 - The Geolib3-MT runtime could potentially result in invalid scene data and crashes in the render process.

- ID 525654 - Geolib3-MT profiling data inflated execution times for Ops that queried inputs that are not already cached, including the input evaluation time in the reported value. This commonly manifested as Merge Ops appearing to be excessively expensive, but any Op that performs non-default queries could be affected.

## Processing

- ID 516358 - Geolib3-MT's FlattenMergeHierarchies Op Graph optimizer now skips Merge Op pairs with a common input.

- ID 522938 - Use of the Geolib Cook Interface's replaceChildren() with the Geolib3-MT runtime could result in erroneous calculation of Op execution root depth, and hence the root location path returned by getRootLocationPath(), as well as errors in dependent evaluations, specifically when the root depth of the input was different to that of the cooking Op. In certain cases, this could cause a cooking thread to freeze.

## Rendering

- ID 522813 - Restored EXR metadata disk render behaviour Katana 4.0. Error was introduced in Katana 4.5.

  Details follow:

  It is possible to create custom EXR metadata fields in Katana disk renders in both Arnold and Renderman. This can be created in the UI using AttributeSet nodes.

  Set the attribute name at /root to `renderSettings.metadata.<attrib>.[key|value|prefix]` where <attrib> is an arbitrary attribute identifier (not output to EXR). - If either <key> or <value> are not included the metadata is not output to the EXR. - If there is no prefix, the property will be `exr/katana:<key> = <value>` - If a prefix is specified, the property will be `exr/<prefix>:katana:<key> = <value>`

  Note: Support for this feature is renderer-specific.

## UI

- ID 493902 - When using the color eye dropper on the first attempt, the selection wasn't respected.

- ID 510417 - When opening a QDialog window in Katana on Windows, a non-functional help button was present in the title bar.

- ID 519728 - When a project with a long filepath was loaded into Katana at start up, the layout of the splash screen would break.

# Known Issues

## Catalog

- ID 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. (This issue is a regression in Katana 2.0v1.)

## Hydra Viewer

- ID 427252 - Locators created via PrimitiveCreate nodes can be snapped to in all modes, rather than just the Lights, Cameras, and Locators mode.

- ID 420882 - Changing between the Viewer (Hydra) tab's multipane layout options quickly can cause a crash or many error messages to be written to the terminal/console.

- ID 380129 - Use of non-conformant GL anti-aliasing modes that employ supersampling reduces rendered point size by the supersampling scaling factor. Katana currently employs any reported anti-aliasing mode (up to a maximum sample count of 16): as a workaround, change the viewerHydra.antiAliasing preference to a lesser anti-aliasing mode.

- ID 352167 - Textures loaded from Hydra shaders are not cleared or reloaded from disk when flushing caches.

## Live Groups

- ID 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).

- ID 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.

- ID 84020 / BZ 40598 - Reverting a LiveGroup node does not revert its user parameters.

- ID 84018 / BZ 40600 - Undoing a revert of an unpublished LiveGroup node does not restore the LiveGroup's editable and modified state.

- ID 83061 / BZ 40237 - Nodes can be dragged into the Group bubble of a non-editable LiveGroup node.

## Materials

- ID 442604 - When "exploding" a NetworkMaterialEdit node in the Node Graph tab into its parts by selecting it and choosing Edit > Explode Selected Groups or pressing the U key, Python exceptions are raised.

- ID 429775 - NetworkMaterialEdit nodes do not currently respect local Graph State changes, for example as performed by VariableSet nodes downstream.

- ID 429302 - When editing a locked node inside a NetworkMaterialEdit node graph, the parameters will be shown at their default state.

- ID 427408 - When entering a NetworkMaterialEdit node whose sceneGraphLocation parameter is empty, warnings are logged by the Geolib3 Runtime.

- ID 423341 - In a NetworkMaterialEdit node graph, connections can be displayed incorrectly if a node's name begins with a number.

- ID 402064 - In a ShadingGroup node graph, the connection between a Dot node and a shading node port can be wrongly colored in some cases.

- ID 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. (This issue is a regression in Katana 2.5v1.)

- ID 199304 - The namespace parameter on Material nodes wrongly allows the insertion of Unicode codepoints outside the ASCII range.

- ID 191052 - Katana does not have any support for the texture reference object workflows of V-Ray for Maya.

## Parameter Expressions

- ID 188533 - Expressions linked to non-local parameters on not previously edited Material nodes can't be evaluated.

- ID 105434 / BZ 47520 - Reference Expressions may not refer to dynamic parameters such as shader parameters.

- ID 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.

## Performance

- ID 105424 / BZ 47518 - Expressions using getParam to link to dynamic parameters would fail if the dynamic parameters hadn't yet been cooked.

## Python

- ID 496659 - When loading a website into a `PyQt5.QtWebEngineWidgets.QWebEngineView` widget, warning and error messages may be issued by the underling Qt WebEngine classes, leading to certain websites not being displayed correctly, or not being displayed at all. (This issue is a regression in Katana 4.5v1 / Katana 5.0v1.)

## Rendering

- ID 524428 - Misleading error messages can be shown in the Render Log when live rendering with 3Delight.

- ID 523574 - Sourcing an aces v1.3 colour profile can cause Katana to crash when rendering with renderer plugins that don't currently support aces v1.3

- ID 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.

- ID 176598 - Use of nodes that modify Graph State Variables in Interactive Render Filters is not currently supported.

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

## UI

- ID 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.

- ID 208802 - Closing the Histogram tab after use leaves the Monitor tab unable to display rendered images.

- ID 123558 / BZ 50911 - When changing an array parameter's tuple count/size, any corresponding attributes are not properly updated in the Attributes tab.

- ID 112544 / BZ 49051 - The Viewer tab may lose sync with the Scene Graph tab when changes to expansion state are interrupted.

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

## USD

- ID 468287 - UsdIn is not retaining expanded view state information for shading nodes in a Network Material context.

## Windows

- ID 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. (This issue is a regression in Katana 3.1v1, possibly caused by QTBUG-52728 - Paint bug and palette errors after some events in Windows)

- ID 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 issue does not affect Linux, where a bundled 3Delight installation is tied to its corresponding Katana installation.

- ID 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."

## Miscellaneous

- ID 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.

- ID 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.

- ID 70196 / BZ 36170 - Control keys (notably arrow keys) do not function as expected in shell mode.

# 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 | 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+ (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 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.