Latest update focuses on artist collaboration and interoperability with render upgrades, workflow improvements, and support of render partners with a new render delegate ‘AVP.’
Foundry has released Katana 5.0, featuring Katana and Nuke interoperability, render upgrades like Foresight+, USD and Look Development workflow improvements, and Hydra Render Delegate support.
With Katana now connecting to Nuke, look development and lighting artists can stream live renders to a running version of Nuke, viewing work in the context of the final comp, in near real-time. Any changes made in Katana automatically update in Nuke for a more holistic view of the creative process.
Building on Katana 4.0’s Foresight, Foresight+ allows artists to work on multiple shots from one template while rendering. This enables artists to see every change that effect shots in each sequence, live, inside Katana.
Katana 5.0 Overview:
The USD workflow upgrades in Katana 5.0 allows for the import and export of lighting information from Katana, facilitating cross-team collaboration. Artists can more easily understand the final lighting design and choices, allowing departments to work quickly by iterating in parallel to get to the final image sooner.
With fundamental improvements to Foundry’s Network Material workflows, added support for Material Macros and User Parameters on Shading Groups help artists reuse areas of their shaders between node graphs, projects and even other users. This streamlines the look development process from Material creation to fully customizable and reusable shader networks.
One of the first applications to deliver a Hydra-based viewport, Katana 5.0 officially supports render delegates from render partners, shipping with a new render delegate “AVP” (advanced viewport) based on internal Foundry technology. Artists can choose their viewer quality, whether it’s a GL-based preview approximation or a path-traced final look.
“With this release, our focus was on improving the look development and lighting artists’ experience,” explained Foundry product manager for lighting, Gary Jones. “Because artists’ workflows are changing and most now work in a non-linear way, we’ve adapted Katana’s features to address changes before the end of a pipeline, where they traditionally used to take place. New features like USD workflows, Hydra and Foundry’s own render delegates and Nuke <> Katana interop enable artists to preview their assets as early as the layout or animation stages and allow them to see the work in context before validating it. With Foresight+ simultaneous live rendering power, artists also gain new powers by being able to iterate on entire sequences at the same time. We’re excited to build on these features in the upcoming releases, focusing on new ways to help artists scale their work.”
Check the Foundry’s videos to see Katana 5.0 in action:
View Comped Renders in Katana with Nuke Bridge
Multiple Simultaneous Live Renders with Foresight+
Preview Instances in the Hydra Viewer
Introducing an Artist-Friendly Material Creation workflow
Additional information on Katana 5.0 is available here.
Source: Foundry
