Page tree

Contents

Welcome to RenderMan 23.4 for Katana

RenderMan for Katana (RfK) capitalizes on the changes made for newer versions of Katana and continues full support of the latest RenderMan ProServer.

This current release offers support for:

  • Katana 3.0
  • Katana 3.1
  • Katana 3.2
  • Katana 3.5
  • Katana 3.6

Please see the release notes below for all the new capabilities and known issues!


New Features in 23.4

  • Now supporting the new RenderMan feature that lets you set ScreenWindow per camera.  There is a new parameter on PrmanCameraSettings called "Use Local Screen Window".  When enabled, RfK will use the ScreenWindow attributes from the camera, rather than using the one from the renderSettings camera.  This option is off by default to maintain backward compatibility, but will be on by default in future major versions

  • Added support for a sequence in the checkpoint.interval option. Please see the documentation on checkpointing
  • There is a new environment variable, RFK_OVERRIDE_RENDER_ACTION. When set, this overrides the default processing for render outputs to always render directly to the renderLocation specified in the RenderOutputDefine node without any copying or processing from Katana

Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where a PrmanGlobalStatements node from an older version could emit an error to the terminal

  • Fixed a bug where we would load shaders and plugins multiple times in Katana 3.5+ with GeolibMT.  This would result in warnings about ignoring duplicate shaders
  • Fixed a bug where crop window values could be imprecise


Known Limitations


Live Rendering

  • Changing the cameraName in RenderSettings doesn't update AOVs without a specified camera

  • Creating a mesh light from existing geometry will duplicate the geometry in-render. Restart the render to remove the duplicate.

  • Cannot change a geometry primitive type during live rendering (e.g., from NURBS to polymesh)
  • When assigning a material to a Scene Graph location, that location must be enabled in the live render working set

  • Live render edits to the visible attribute need group locations to be "included with children" in the Live Render Working Set

RenderMan for Katana

  • The Monitor doesn't support adding/removing displays during a live render
  • If you use ROI and overscan or cropWindow, the ROI will have to be adjusted slightly after a resolution edit to get the correct value during a live render
  • Instanced lights with filters using the "Light Filter" coordsys have an incorrect transform. The workaround is to promote the light filter to a shared light filter using a light filter reference.
  • We do not receive live render edits from Katana for nodes added at the end of the node graph, right above the Render node.  If a no-op node (e.g., Merge) is inserted above the Render node and the node is added above that then the edit is received.
  • Any live updates will cause interactive motion blur to be disabled. The render must be restarted.