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# Katana 4.5v3 Release Notes

Contents

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

# Release Date

11 May 2022

# Previous Releases

- Katana 4.5v2 Release Notes

# What's New in Katana 4.5

These release notes describe changes from Katana 4.5v2 to 4.5v3.

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

## Hydra Viewer

- ID 501896 - Keyboard shortcuts have been added to change the display type inside the Viewer tab (formerly the Hydra Viewer tab). The shortcuts are as follows:

  - 4 is assigned to Points
  - 5 is assigned to Wireframe
  - 6 is assigned to Solid
  - 7 is assigned to Flat Shaded

  These shortcuts can be changed via the Keyboard Shortcut manager.

## Katana <> Nuke

- Support for Nuke 13.2 has been added to the Nuke Bridge.

## Network Material UI Enhancements

- In the NMC/NME's Parameters tabs, you can now drag and drop items between the Material Interface's tabs. For instance when setting parameter paths in the Visibility & Locking tab from the Parameters tab.

## Parameters

- ID 507073 - Support for `ValuePolicyProxy` instances has been added to the `BaseRampFormWidget` used in Color Ramps. Previously, only explicit numeric policy types were recognized as valid, even when the underlying policy type of the `ValuePolicyProxy` matched the expected requirements.

# Bug Fixes

## API/SDK Changes

- ID 494999 - Manipulators that manipulate some shader parameters threw an exception due to differences between the signatures of `PyScenegraphAttrs` and `PyFnAttributes`.

## Configuration

- ID 506441 - `PTex.dll` shipping with Katana conflicted with XGen from newer Maya versions at render time on Windows

## Hydra Viewer

- ID 495994 - When setting the subdivision level of a subdmesh, changing between levels greater than 0 would not update the mesh in the viewport.

## Katana <> Nuke

- ID 501577 - When running a Nuke comp while an InteractiveRenderFilter is active, the Nuke comp would return a black image.

- ID 502574 - When updating the resolution of an in-progress Live Render (with a renderer that supports this), any Live Comps in the Nuke Bridge tab that use the Live Render as input would not be updated to the newly set resolution.

## Katana Queue and Remote Rendering

- ID 495328 - When you load a new project while there are active local renders in the Katana Queue, those active renders wouldn't be cancelled.

## Live Groups

- ID 503890 - When a NetworkMaterial node's locked state changed while the user was inside it, the lock message banner at the top of the Node Graph tab would become inaccurate.

- ID 504326 - When a LiveGroup's source was defined by an expression and a new source was loaded through the right-click LiveGroup -> Load menu option, the LiveGroup would keep it's source expression and not update to the new source.

## Network Materials

- ID 502408 - Nodes within the Network Material context used to remain in a selected or edited state even when the edit/selection flag was set to a different node outside of the context. (This issue was a regression from 4.0v6)

- ID 503505 - When creating a new NetworkMaterial via the Parameters tab of a NetworkMaterialCreate node from outside of the Network Material context, the sidebar terminals would no longer update to show the new NetworkMaterial. (This issue was a regression from 4.0v7.)

- ID 503698 - When a newly created Backdrop node within the NetworkMaterialCreate node was deleted, the NetworkMaterialCreate node itself was also incorrectly deleted.

## Network Materials UI

- ID 503611 - When editing a NetworkMaterialCreate node, moving multiple NetworkMaterials into and out of a namespace in the Parameters Tab could cause errors to be printed to the console.

## Parameters

- ID 487576 - When a NetworkMaterialSplice has an incoming node that uses the Mapping Popup Menu widget type for one of its parameters, the NetworkMaterialSplice node would report an error.

## Python

- ID 505253 - Multi-sampled data constructors in the Python bindings of the `DataAttributes`-derived classes could be wrongly built with unwanted data when unexpected types were provided in the values. `TypeError` exceptions are raised now, matching behavior in Katana 4.0. (This issue was a regression in Katana 4.5v1)

- ID 507274 - PyGeometryProducer.getAttributeNames() returned a Python set instead of an alphanumerically ordered list. This affected the order of top-level attributes in the output of the AttrDump utility.

## Rendering

- ID 500191 - If the UI4.App.Preferences module is imported during a batch render, the interactiveRenderThreads3D preference would incorrectly override the number of threads the renderers use.

- ID 502080 - When running Katana in Batch or Script mode on a machine without PulseAudio libraries available in PATH, ImportErrors would occur.

## UI

- ID 502037 - A previous patch inadvertently added checkboxes to capsule widgets with limited functionality. This has instead been moved to the widget options editor, and now provides proper functionality for setting capsules to exclusive selection.

- ID 502675 - Number widgets with their Drag Minimum and/or Drag Maximum options set used to incorrectly clamp values that were typed in if they exceeded the specified min/max. (This issue was a regression from 4.0v6)

- ID 502786 - When custom Working Set Columns were added to a Scene Graph View widget with a custom title, its items were displayed incorrectly. (This issue was a regression from 4.0v5)

- ID 503982 - When clicking on Go to Edit-> Fit Backdrop node to selected nodes with selected nodes, none of which were a Backdrop node, a new Backdrop node would not be created and fit to the selected Nodes.

  When clicking on Go to Edit-> Fit Backdrop node to selected nodes, an AttributeError was raised.

  The Z-order of the nodes fitted by a Backdrop node when Go to Edit-> Fit Backdrop node to selected nodes was clicked were undone one at a time.

## USD

- ID 505055 - Ops in KatanaUsdPlugins clashed with RenderMan named ops. Pxr has been removed as a prefix to the Ops registered by KatanaUsdPlugins. The folders of KatanaUsdPlugins source code have been renamed to remove Pxr prefixes where applicable. See the external open source repository for more information on the changes. The out-dated `KatanaUSDPlugins/ChangeList` page from the Dev-Guide has been removed. Please check the KatanaUsdPlugins GitHub repository for more details on future changes to the code base.

## USD Import

- ID 453348 - When importing a USD file that had previously been exported from Katana via the UsdMaterialBake node, any Katana child materials were not bound correctly on import. For example, the materialAssign attribute on a bound location was updated from NetworkMaterial1_material1 to NetworkMaterial1/material1 (to match what it was before it was exported), but the location of the material in the scene graph was still NetworkMaterial1_material1. This meant the location was unbound and produced incorrect rendering results.

- ID 501773 - When locations without a geometry.arbitrary.<group>.indexedValue attribute but with a geometry.arbitrary.<group>.index attribute were displayed in the Viewer tab, Katana would crash. (This issue was a regression in Katana 4.0v1)

## Windows

- ID 504344 - The Open dialog would become unresponsive if there were favourites which point to a network location that was inaccessible due to invalid/missing credentials on Windows.

# 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.

## 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 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.