Streamline your workflow with Katana
Discover how Katana can reduce your pipeline friction and what you need to consider when deploying it into your studio.
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Powerful Look Development and Lighting.
USD and Katana, together.
USD and Katana, together.
Continue your USD journey with Katana
Katana 8.0 now comes with complete roundtripping — to and from USD — within the application. Combined with Katana’s production-proven framework, this roundtrip provides a fully supported fallback mechanism that enables you to migrate your teams to USD — in your own time and without risk! What’s more, Katana 8.0’s USD exporting capabilities gives you even more power, so that you can bring entire USD layers and stages back up the pipeline to share with other departments.
Katana 8.0 in action.
Explore the new features.
Katana to USD
Artists can now seamlessly convert Katana data to native USD data with a new KatanaToUsd node. This streamlines the creative process and completes the ability to roundtrip alongside Katana 7.0’s UsdToKatana node. This means artists are able to use the tools they love from Katana and apply them to USD data. Without the need to have the tools rewritten for USD, artists can cut down on production time.
Learn moreUSD export
Now with the ability to export from USD, Katana enables artists to seamlessly work in a USD pipeline by allowing for all USD changes made in Katana to be exported for re-use in other departments. This means improved collaboration between departments and compatibility between applications. USD changes to anything from lights and materials, to cameras and other geometry, can be made and then exported effortlessly, meaning you can use Katana in any part of the pipeline.
Learn moreUsdLight
Now artists are able to create lights in Katana on a USD stage, which means that scenes no longer need to be converted from Geolib to make them work in the native USD space. This also provides further support for studios who want to run a fully native USD pipeline.
Discover morePattern-based Collections
We’re bringing Collections (and the new-to-USD Pattern-based Collections feature) to Katana’s USD space, greatly speeding up artists’ USD workflows through the day-to-day use of the software’s USD-native nodes. Artists who are familiar with using Collections as part of Katana’s day-to-day workflows with CEL, can also now use them in USD with the new UsdCollection node (and PBC support within other nodes). This enables Katana templates to be flexible and adaptable across many shots and sequences – regardless of complexity.
Learn moreScene Explorer Collections
Collections are now supported in the Scene Explorer tab for both Geolib and USD using a new Collections panel above the main scene tree, which is controlled through a new Collections Working Set. This means that Collections can be made easily accessible and referenced in other nodes throughout the scene.
Discover moreUSD debugging tools
Katana 8.0 provides more tools to enable TDs to debug more quickly so that more shots can be produced faster, thanks to less downtime. The USD debugging tools include file inspections, correct error handling and several quality of life upgrades. What's more, the stage inspection which enables you to view a live version of your USD stage in text form. This also gives you the ability to switch modes to either show the full stage in text form or what the selected node is contributing to the corresponding stage.
Learn morePerformance tab: Python Profiler
The Performance tab now has a Python Profiler section, providing a simple interface for collecting and displaying Python profiling data of the application. This enables you to understand the most time-consuming scene changes for debugging purposes.
Learn morePerformance improvement: Traversal optimization
Artists will notice interactivity improvements when larger Node Graphs are being evaluated, particularly when changing a parameter within a node. Scenes now load up to 2.5x faster when compared with Katana 7.0, thanks to Katana’s Node Graph traversal process being largely ported over from Python to C++.
USD in Hydra improvements
USD prims, including new locators for lights and cameras, can now be manipulated in the Hydra viewer, continuing to improve the user experience of artists working natively in USD.
Learn moreVFX Reference Platform 2024
You can benefit from the features of Katana 8.0 with the updated VFX Reference Platform 2024. It’s now easier than ever before to integrate Katana into your pipeline alongside other Foundry products and more.
Learn moreDive deeper.
Get the most out of Katana 8.0 with Katana Learn. Explore dedicated tips, tricks, and tutorials covering brand-new features like the Multi-threaded live rendering and USD scene manipulation, so you can transform your workflow.
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Best practices for your lighting pipeline
Uncover challenges in episodic animation and find out how Katana contributes to creating a streamlined workflow.
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