Katana 8.0v5 Release Notes

Release Date

06 October 2025

Previous Releases

What's New in Katana 8.0

These release notes describe changes from Katana 8.0v4 to 8.0v5.

For a high-level overview of important changes in the Katana 8.0 line, please see the accompanying What's New in Katana 8.0 document.

Feature Enhancements

Additional USD Nodes

  • The experimental UsdEngineWrite node has been added to Katana.

    UsdEngineWrite nodes allow users to dynamically write C++ UPE Engines for Katana's USD Processing Engine. The functionality is equivalent to the OpWrite node. Currently, it is hidden behind the KATANA_ENABLE_USDENGINEWRITE_NODE environment variable, which will need to be set to 1 to be enabled.

Network Materials UI

  • ID 607003 - The default shortcut key for temporarily expanding shading nodes in the NMX context while hovering has changed from X to W.

USD Import

  • ID 605970 - The UsdIn node assetResolverContext parameter has been upgraded to assetResolverContexts and been upgraded from a `string` to a `stringarray` parameter. The upgrade script can be found in the KatanaUsdPlugins repository.

    If you build a custom KatanaUsdPlugins, it is strongly recommended to cherry pick the changes if you plan on using Katana 6.5v8, 7.0v8, 7.5v5 or 8.0v5.

    The internal Katana document version for this change is 7.0.5.2.

Bug Fixes

Miscellaneous

  • ID 604407 - When repeatedly making use of Undo and Redo History on SuperTools, Katana would crash without warning.

  • ID 604507 - When changes were made to node parameters, UsdTextView sometimes did not show the latest updated value.

  • ID 604815 - When a Disk Render with allowConcurrentRenders enabled was queued twice in rapid succession, the UI became unresponsive.

  • ID 607830 - When Nodes3DAPI.GetGeometryProducer() was invoked with a non-default port index, the wrong GeometryProducer was returned as the port index was wrongly discarded.

     

Rendering

  • ID 514871 - When using Extended ASCII characters and performing a Batch Render, UTF-8 decoding errors were being raised.

  • ID 606538 - When renderers exited with custom error codes, Katana would always return a -1 error code.

  • ID 606543 - When batch rendering a from Render node whose primary input is connected to a Merge node, the render would fail with the error `Nodes3DAPI.RenderNodeUtil.RenderSettingsError: Render settings not found in scene.`

USD Native

  • ID 603323 - When a material was bound to a prim directly under a PointInstancer prim, UsdIn nodes failed to correctly construct the hierarchy of the PointInstancer.

  • ID 605084 - When using the UsdActiveSet, UsdInheritSet, UsdPayloadSet, UsdReferenceSet, UsdSpecializeSet and UsdVariantSet nodes, the prim type was not correctly exported.

  • ID 606230 - When a UsdCollection node in edit mode was targeting an incoming USD Collection that had values in the excludes property, the excludes parameter in the Parameters tab was unable to show the incoming values.

  • ID 606528 - When manipulating instanced USD prims, a double transform would be applied.

Known Issues

Hydra Viewer

  • ID 580249 - When manipulating transformations for both Geolib and USD locations/prims at the same time, the manipulator handle will ping to the center of the USD mesh.

USD Native

  • ID 588881 - The pivotTranslate parameter on the UsdTransformEdit node currently have no effect.

  • ID 587515 - The Centre of Interest manipulator is currently not supported in conjunction with USD prims.

  • ID 586965 - USD's stitch method for stitching layers doesn't retain blocked attributes.

  • ID 579376 - Currently, Pattern-Based Collections does not support the use of the include and exclude widgets in conjunction with the membershipExpression widget on the UsdCollection node. This is due to a known issue with USD 24.05.

    Note:  More info can be found on the USD thread: https://forum.aousd.org/t/problems-with-pattern-based-collections/1197/7. Katana's Pattern-Based Collection widget computes collection membership using membership expressions, therefore it does not currently handle relationship-mode collections correctly (statement true for USD 24.05).

Miscellaneous

  • ID 605164 - There are data size limitations when using the policy/xml MIME data format in UsdAttributeSet. The limit can be changed using the KATANA_VALUEPOLICY_MIMEDATA_ARRAY_SIZELIMIT environment variable, but increasing that value could cause performance issues when large Array attributes are copied.

System Requirements

Officially Supported Operating Systems

  • Windows 11
  • Linux 64-bit operating system (Rocky Linux 9)

Hardware Requirements

Minimum Recommended
CPU Dual-core processor
Storage 2.5+ GB available for installation
System RAM 1+ GB available
Graphics RAM 1+ GB available 2+ GB available
Display 800 x 600 1920 x 1080
OpenGL OpenGL 4.5+ (see note below)

Note:  AMD-based graphics cards are currently not supported.

Tested Workstation Hardware

The configurations listed below are those that Foundry have tested with Katana. Due to the constantly changing nature and wide variety of computer hardware available in the market, Foundry is unable to officially certify hardware. The list below can be used as a recommendation and does not guarantee that it meets your particular needs.

  • NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000

  • NVIDIA Quadro RTX A4000

  • NVIDIA Quadro RTX A3000

  • NVIDIA Quadro P4000

Please download and install the latest graphics driver from the NVIDIA website.

If you encounter any issues, please contact Customer Support directly through the Support Portal at the following address: https://support.foundry.com.