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Welcome to RenderMan for Katana (RfK) 21.5!
This release introduces improvements and some fixes to the previous release.
Support for Katana 2.6 is introduced.
New Features
RfK has new and improved light filter UI and workflows. Here are some of the new light filter improvements:
We now have light filter packages in GafferThree, so different light filter types can be created with keyboard shortcuts.
The Object tab of the GafferThree UI has a viewer section with parameters that control how the light filter is drawn in the Viewer.
The Object tab also has two new parameters in the transform section:
Lock Size to Cone Angle: This parameter is available for cookie/gobo and barn light filters. Selecting this option will set the width, height, and apex parameters on the light filter to match the shape of the light's cone angle.
Coordinate System: This parameter will let you switch the coordinate system that the light filter operates in. You can use this parameter to ignore the transform of the parent light, allowing you to move the light independently of the light filter.
- A new PrmanVolume node for loading and rendering volume data has been introduced.
Miscellaneous Changes
- Light Packages now display geometry and aim constraint parameters.
- In the Viewer, Analytic cookies now display the texture of the cookie at the end of the cookie's projection, rather than at the filter itself.
Light filters on mesh lights now use the coordinate system on the mesh light geometry location, rather than the light location.
- The loglevel and logfile commandLineArguments are now available in PrmanGlobalStatements.
Bug Fixes
- RfK on Windows now renders correctly to 'it'.
- Transform edits on light filters attached to mesh lights now update correctly during live renders.
- Light filters are now correctly emitted for lights set up as NetworkMaterials.
- Hierarchical muting and soloing of lights (i.e. muting/soloing a rig) now works as expected.
- The visibility of light filters in the Viewer now correctly matches their mute state.
- Fixed a render crash when a struct param is enabled but not connected (e.g. PxrTexture.manifold is enabled but its string value is empty).
Known Limitations
Live Rendering
- Light linking edits are not currently supported.
- Lights can be added during live rendering however, due to a bug in Katana 2.1, a newly-added light is not automatically 'live' and does not inherit its live state from the parent. When adding a light you will need to manually activate that light in the Scene Graph. Newly added lights work correctly in Katana 2.0 and Katana 2.5v5+.
- Adding mesh lights during live rendering creates duplicate geometry, upon re-render this is solved.
- Changes to light filters are not processed unless the associated lights are also marked 'live'.
- Alembic geometry mesh light transform edits (i.e. Transform3D changes) are not updated correctly during live rendering.
- "Disable Local Assignment" does not work during live rendering with parameters of OSL shaders (e.g. PxrLayer and PxrLayerMixer).
- Disabling and re-enabling layers in PxrLayerMixer can cause instability in Live Rendering.
Other limitations
- If an object is assigned a material that has been disabled or does not exist the geometry will not render at all.
- If you are rendering to 'it' the Monitor tab must be open for the Render Log tab to receive output from Katana and prman.
- Although direct non-identity scaling has been removed from the PxrDomeLight and PxrDistantLight it is still possible to get an indirect scale via a constrained or inherited location. If the indirect scale is negative the Pxr light will flip to a reverse orientation.
- Bake renders only work as Disk Renders. The render will fail for Live and Preview Renders.