Welcome to RenderMan 22.0 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 22.0.

We're excited to have improved Live Rendering. All manner of changes and edits can be made during a Live Rendering session. Waits are minimal and results are stunning, the renderer will continue to refine your image continuously should you take a coffee break and pick up where you left off on your return. We've worked hard to avoid making the artist restart the render to see updates and stability is improved.

This current release offers support for:

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

What's New

The New Preset Browser

 

Additional Changes

 

Miscellaneous Changes

 

Improvements since RenderMan 22.07b

  • Array user attributes are now supported.

  • Camera projections are now supported per camera
  • There is a new node called PrmanCameraSettings for setting camera settings
  • Moved trace:intersectpriority back to an attribute on PrmanObjectStatements
  • Added the new offscreen displacement bound primAttribute, please see: displacementbound:offscreen
  • Added back support for geomtetry.vertex.uv and goemetry.point.uv
  • Muting mesh lights, dome lights with portal children, and light arrays will now work during live render
  • Material IDs are now available for the PxrCryptomatte sample filter

  • Arbitrary clipping planes are now supported

Improvements since RenderMan 22.06b

  • RfK's script and Op for automatically converting attributes from 21 to 22 is now correctly handling the conversion of "prmanStatements.orientation" to "prmanStatements.attributes.ReverseOrientation" and "prmanStatements.primAttributes.Orientation". 

  • Some reorganization is ongoing for the PrmanObjectStatements node to improve clarity and workflow (not yet reflected in documentation images)
  • Values of dice.micropolygonlength were being ignored and has been fixed
  • Removed indexofrefraction from PrmanObjectStatements. Added "derivatives.extrapolate"
  • The PrmanHoldoutCreate macro is available in RfK again.

Improvements since RenderMan 22.05b

  • Added the global traversal setting "flattenInstanceSources" which indicates whether instance sources should be flattened internally in the renderer. By default this is on which is the most efficient and flexible for the common case. Disabling this option allows deeper nesting of instance sources with the caveat that RenderMan only supports 5 levels of nesting, and it prevents per-instance variation on instance source children. This can be overridden locally by the local PrmanObjectStatements parameter - "traversal.flattenInstanceSource"

  • OpenEXR outputs containing "Ci,a" as the first four channels will now write out an EXR with R,G,B,A as the first four channels (i.e. "asrgba" will be enabled for all beauty renders).

  • The attribute dice:micropolygonlength default has been corrected to match the RenderMan default of (1)

  • The geometry.flip_t setting in PrmanObjectStatements is implemented.
  • The global statistics option "endofframe" is no longer deleted. It is now renamed to "level" and any non-zero (enabling) values are correctly preserved by setting "level" to True.

  • Manipulator cycling is done with "Tab" instead of "Y"

  • RfK now correctly delivers NURBS trim curve information to the renderer.
  • Katana 3.0: Added showRamp parameters to the rod light filter. Updated "showUmbraProjection" default to "on".
  • Katana 3.0: Added fill option to Gaffer3 since light filters can now be solid or wireframe
  • Katana 3.0: The Hydra Viewer now visualizes PxrEnvDayLight.

  • Katana 3.0: Light COI visualization in Hydra VIewer now accounts for global scale.
  • Katana 3.0: Cone angle manipulator for Hydra Viewer now accounts for global scale.
  • Katana 3.0: Textures on Cookie Light Filters are now visualized in the Hydra Viewer
  • Katana 3.0: Windows support for lights and light filters in the Hydra Viewer
  • Katana 3.0: Hide muted lights and light filters in the Hydra Viewer
  • Katana 3.0: The Lock Size to Cone Angle and Coordinate System parameters on light filters are now respected in the Hydra Viewer.
  • Multi-camera rendering functionality is restored

Improvements since RenderMan 22.04b

  • Katana 3.0 Hydra Viewer light plugins functional in Linux, UI work ongoing
  • Various performance improvements and bug fixes
  • Added extensibility to RfK's procedural argument parsing. Now RfK will look for an attribute "argsConversionFunc" which is the name of a attribute function for custom argument conversion.
  • Add support for prman command line options "woff", "logfile", and "loglevel"
  • "Refresh Texture" button now works for PxrCookieLightFilter and PxrGoboLightFilter.

Improvements since RenderMan 22.03b

  • ID passes should now output correctly
  • Updated PxrColorRamp
  • Baking should now work
  • Fixed an issue with invalid cameras in RIB
  • Some UI tweaks for clarity

Improvements since RenderMan 22.02b

  • Light filter linking is supported.  It should work the same as in 21.
  • Crop windows during live rendering work as expected
  • RfK will now use the basis from the alembic file unless overriden by the curve.basis setting in PrmanObjectStatements (NOTE: only supported with AlembicInPrman until a Katana/Foundry bug is addressed)
  • Added deformation motion blur support for blobbies.
  • Corrected missing Primvar processing
  • Fixed a possible crash with mishandled primvars and textures
  • Shadow linking in GafferThree's linking tab is now supported
  • Various UI fixes and simplifications

Improvements since RenderMan 22.01b

  • The renderer now obeys the set number of CPU threads.
  • Substitute whitespace with '_' for names and labels
  • The default type in PrmanOutputChannelDefine is now "color"
  • Added support for live rendering from the selected Viewer camera
  • The Quality Preset parameter on PrmanGlobalStatements no longer errors.
  • Removed the known limitation about parallel traveral edits to live material not working.
  • Live render edits to ROI / cropWindow now use the intersection of the two attributes
  • Added live render support for crop windows
  • Alembic cameras now use the camera settings from prmanGlobalStatements.
  • OSL parameters now have connection type checking for the inputs and ouputs of PrmanShadingNode.
  • OSL parameters support a "tag" hint in the metadata to allow users to specify a connection type for the parameter. For multiple types on outputs, use a "|" to delimit the options (eg "struct|manifold").

  • RfK now supports connections between any color, normal, point, and vector parameters.
  • Attribute "trace.displacements" are now automatically upgraded to the current "boolean" type. Previous values of '2' are now reset to '1'.

  • Unknown scenegraph location types no longer emit warning "Location type not recognized". These unknown location types still default internally to a group location.

 

 

Known Limitations

 

Live Rendering

 

Beta limitations

Katana Limitation