What's new in Katana 7.0

CGMeetup

What's new in Katana 7.0  Join Creative Specialist Ruth Hutton for a demonstration of the new features and enhancements in Katana 7.0, including native USD workflows, and significant performance improvements.  We’ll be exploring the USD framework, comprising a collection of new nodes and Scene Explorer tab for working with USD data natively. We’ll also take a look at the Live Rendering updates and optimised Geolib3-MT Runtime.  About Us: We are the creators of industry-standard visual effects, computer graphics and 3D design software for the Digital Design, Media and Entertainment industries. Since 1996, Foundry has strived to bring artists and studios the best tools for their workflows so they can battle industry constraints whilst staying creative.

Transcript

00:00 Hi everyone, thank you all so much for joining me today to take you through the new features

00:11 of Katana 7.

00:13 Just before we get started, I'll introduce myself.

00:15 I'm Ruth, I'm a creative specialist here at Foundry, and we're also joined by some of

00:20 the Katana product and engineering teams in the chat.

00:23 So we'll all be available to answer any questions that you might have throughout the session.

00:28 So please do feel free to ask as many questions as you like, and let's get started.

00:36 This is a really exciting release for Katana as it brings you native USD workflows, as

00:41 well as some really significant performance improvements.

00:45 These were the key areas of development for this release, as well as the VFX Reference

00:49 Platform update.

00:51 So Katana 7 is on the VFX Reference Platform 2023, but this was a dual release, so 6.5

00:58 came out at the same time and remains on 2022.

01:03 The feature set across both versions is exactly the same.

01:08 So let's jump in to the improvements on the performance side.

01:13 First of all, we've introduced two new cache eviction methods to choose between when using

01:17 Geolib, which is Katana's scene graph processing engine.

01:23 These new options are Dependency Protecting and Continual, and you can choose between

01:27 them from the render settings.

01:31 They provide you with different options to help improve memory management, so you can

01:35 be sure to get the best performance no matter what scene you're working on.

01:40 Some trial and error will probably be needed to determine which option works best for your

01:44 scene setup and renderer.

01:48 Another part of the performance improvements included upgrading from single threaded to

01:53 multi threaded live rendering.

01:55 This means you'll get much faster feedback when making changes to your scene with a live

01:59 render running, in comparison to previous Katana versions.

02:04 You'll also see these improvements when using the Foresight+ features, so when running multiple

02:09 live renders simultaneously.

02:11 I'm using Arnold in this example, but these improvements will be seen across all render

02:16 plugins as well.

02:19 This release also brings a huge addition to Katana's USD workflows, now supporting native

02:25 USD stage building and manipulation.

02:29 The pre-Katana 7 workflows allowed you to bring in USD data, converting it to Katana

02:34 data for manipulation.

02:37 While this workflow is still very much valid, working with native USD and therefore skipping

02:42 that conversion on import comes with a lot of performance benefits and flexibility, while

02:48 still allowing you to bring elements across to Katana whenever needed.

02:53 The Katana team's vision for introducing native USD is to let you work with a combination

02:59 of USD and Katana workflows, so you don't have to choose one or the other.

03:05 We understand the transition to USD is a big move and want to help support that by keeping

03:10 the workflows flexible.

03:12 Because of this, in order to use these new workflows in Katana, you don't have to be

03:16 working with a fully USD pipeline, so instead of moving your entire pipeline to USD at once,

03:23 you can do this move gradually, department by department, to make the transition to USD

03:28 as smooth and risk-free as possible.

03:31 We also know that USD is still developing, and so Katana's approach to native USD workflows

03:37 allows the space for that growth.

03:40 So in Katana, Hydra reads the scene information the same whether it's coming through native

03:45 USD or whether it's being converted to Katana.

03:48 At render time, the USD data will be converted automatically, so again, it doesn't matter

03:54 what format the information is coming from, everything will work together in one scene.

04:00 This all means that you get all the benefits of Katana, like multi-shot workflows, Foresight

04:05 Plus, lighting tools, Nuke Bridge, as well as all the strengths of USD.

04:12 You can build your projects and your node graph with a combination of USD and Katana

04:16 data, manipulate the data on both sides, and then bring elements over from USD to Katana

04:23 to make further edits with Katana nodes whenever needed.

04:27 And this release really is just the beginning for native USD workflows, there's a lot more

04:31 development planned for future releases focused on both USD and Hydra.

04:38 So let's jump into what's been added to support these workflows.

04:42 You now have access to a collection of new native USD nodes, which allow you to compose

04:47 and manipulate USD stages inside Katana.

04:52 You can create prims for defining your stage hierarchy.

04:57 Build up your scene through USD composition arcs.

05:01 Then make edits to prim properties, make transformations, setting variants and so on.

05:09 The Scene Explorer tab has also been introduced to support USD scene trees.

05:13 This tab is designed to be a long term replacement of the Scene Graph tab, which is still available,

05:18 but because the Scene Explorer has the Katana tree and USD tree all in one place, you can

05:24 be using it even if you're not yet working with USD, and you should find it more performant

05:29 as well.

05:30 You also have much of the same functionality as the Scene Graph, including deferred loading,

05:35 bookmarking, implicit resolving, selective rendering and filtering.

05:40 On the Katana side, the UI for the working sets has been updated to align more with the

05:45 design of Nuke's Scene Graph.

05:47 And on the USD side, you can view the type, kind and purposes for the prims in the tree.

05:55 There's also two new working sets which have been introduced on the USD side, which gives

05:59 you control over payload loading and activating or deactivating prims in the viewer.

06:05 When the payload working set is enabled, expansion based loading is replaced with payload loading,

06:12 where payloads, indicated by the arrows, can be selected from the working set column.

06:19 Because payloads will usually be used for each asset, this can be a great way of managing

06:23 those heavy elements in your scene.

06:26 When used in combination with the viewer visibility working set, this can let you keep your scene

06:31 tree collapsed, while still having all the elements you need visible in the viewer.

06:37 When this working set is disabled again, you can use the expansion based loading that you

06:42 may be used to.

06:44 The active working set is similar to viewer visibility, but often more efficient, because

06:49 when prims are deactivated, it actually prevents their children being composed to the stage.

06:55 This lets you remove elements from the viewer that you may not need to see, but still like

06:59 to include in renders.

07:03 Using a combination of these new working sets, and the existing ones, gives you a huge amount

07:08 of control over your scene, and which parts are loaded or visible at any one point.

07:14 USD properties can be viewed in the attributes tab, so all the attributes and relationships

07:21 are available in the same place, whether you're selecting a USD or Katana location.

07:28 So let's jump into Katana and see some of these workflows in action.

07:32 We can build up the scene hierarchy using prims, and have control over the prim specifier

07:38 and how they're defined.

07:41 For example, classes can be created as locations to inherit or specialize from.

07:47 Defines can be created to load layers to, or give a type and create geometry like cubes

07:54 and planes, or things like cameras and shaders.

08:02 We can also have children and parents with different specifiers, for example, defines

08:08 under classes, so your hierarchy can look and behave exactly as you need it to.

08:16 Once we have this hierarchy, we can bring in our USD layers using the composition arcs

08:20 available.

08:21 These layers will likely be your assets, look, layout, animation, cameras and so on.

08:29 It will depend on your pipeline and workflows how the layers are exported and how they need

08:34 to be brought into Katana, but you can load them as sublayers, payloads or references.

08:41 For example, using sublayers, we can bring in those layers to the root level of the scene

08:45 tree or to load entire stages exported from other software, which are already composed.

08:53 References need to be loaded to an existing prim and we can then choose the prim path

09:01 from the asset to load if needed.

09:08 References are similar, except with payloads we have the benefit of choosing which are

09:13 loaded using the payload working set.

09:17 References can be used to bring in layers such as look files, which can be loaded to

09:21 existing locations or assembly files which have a payload and references appended within.

09:29 You can also bring in multiple layers to the same location, so in this case our payload,

09:35 such as the layout and animation as well as the look.

09:40 If multiple references are brought in with the same opinion, then the no graph ordering

09:45 will determine which is stronger.

09:48 You can also change that list position for these references to control which opinions

09:53 are strongest.

09:55 Appending it will put it to the back of the list, so the opinion will be weaker and therefore

10:00 any other opinion will take effect.

10:03 You can also delete them from the list to remove those opinions or reset the list to

10:08 ignore those list edits from any weaker layers.

10:13 Again how these layers are brought in will depend on your pipeline and it's likely you'll

10:17 have composed stages to load in as opposed to individual layers, but you also have all

10:22 these options for composing your stages inside Katana.

10:27 We can then specialise or inherit from these locations to create multiple instances of

10:33 that prim and it's hierarchy.

10:38 Specialising and inheriting will give you the same result, but because their opinions

10:44 have different strengths we can make overrides to any of the specialised opinions, but not

10:51 the inherited ones, unless they're local.

10:58 Utilising this difference between specialises and inherits will give you more control about

11:02 the aspects of certain assets that you either may want to override in the future or protect

11:08 against any possible overrides.

11:13 When you want to manipulate this data inside Katana you can use the new native USD nodes

11:19 or you can convert any elements over from USD to Katana locations and attributes in

11:25 order to make edits with Katana nodes.

11:29 For example here I'm bringing the shot camera across so I can view through it as viewing

11:34 through USD cameras isn't yet supported.

11:38 I can specify where I want it to be located and other options like isolating parts and

11:46 specifying motion sample times for adding motion blur to your renders.

11:52 This node can be great if there are specific elements that you want to bring across but

11:56 this conversion will also happen automatically at render time.

12:00 So you can find the same options available in the render settings node under deferred

12:05 USD to Katana.

12:09 When manipulating the data natively we can edit these prims properties, their attributes,

12:14 relationships and metadata using the relevant nodes.

12:20 As an example I can turn off a prims visibility to remove it from the scene.

12:25 Here I'm changing the visibility attribute to invisible.

12:30 And we can see this in the attributes tab.

12:34 If I disable and enable the node then we can see the change.

12:39 I'll also set off a render so we can see this a bit more clearly because unlike the viewer

12:44 visibility working set which removes items from the viewer, this visibility attribute

12:49 also affects renders.

12:52 So if I disable and enable this node again we can see that change reflected in the render.

12:59 I can also change the material bindings for any mesh to another material in the scene.

13:06 Here I'm replacing the material for one of the gun props to a glass material which is

13:11 just another material brought in with the stage.

13:15 Again we can see that update in the attributes tab under the relationships.

13:21 And if I restart this render then we can see that change there too.

13:30 I could also change this prims metadata.

13:33 So here I'm changing the kind from an assembly to a component.

13:48 And there's a lot of other use cases for these nodes.

13:51 You can use them to manipulate any of the prim properties so you really do get a lot

13:54 of flexibility and control over your stages inside Katana.

14:01 And the parameters of these nodes are also very similar to the attribute set Katana node.

14:05 So there will be familiar workflows for those of you used to working with Katana.

14:13 We can also make any transformations that might be needed to override the layout making

14:18 it really easy to make those final tweaks and refinements without having to jump back

14:23 up the pipeline and rebaking any layers.

14:28 You can also set any variants that have come in with any of your layers.

14:32 So if you have material or geometry variations that you want to switch between at any point

14:37 then you can do this inside Katana as well.

14:41 Again making it easy for any last minute changes.

14:46 You could even link these variant options up to a graph state variable to keep all your

14:50 scene variations in one place.

14:54 Again combining the strengths and workflows of both USD and Katana.

15:02 If you want to prune any elements from your scene for example on a per shot basis you

15:07 can do this by deactivating those prims to stop them being composed on the stage.

15:14 In this example we have a fairly large environment but some of these hallways aren't actually

15:19 seen in the shot camera.

15:22 So they can be deactivated to optimize the scene.

15:27 Just for demonstration I'll set the paths for this character and the turret here instead

15:36 so we can see more clearly what effect this node has.

15:39 You can see those assets are immediately removed from the viewer and the hierarchy is removed

15:44 from the scene tree as well because that location is no longer being composed.

15:50 If I set off another render we can see that unlike the active working set which only affects

15:57 the viewer this node will affect your renders as well.

16:00 So it's a great workflow for removing any unnecessary elements from the scene.

16:07 Jumping into a more developed scene I can demonstrate these workflows a little better

16:11 in more context.

16:14 I've built this scene up using a combination of USD workflows and all the Katana workflows

16:20 that you're used to.

16:23 So the scene is built up of my USD stage.

16:27 The layers are composed inside Katana.

16:31 So the payloads, materials, layout, animation and cameras have been brought in natively.

16:37 I have VDBs brought in to the Katana side.

16:41 And I have the light setup, again Katana locations.

16:49 For things like light linking I can use implicit resolvers to view paths that will exist after

16:55 the deferred USD to Katana conversion.

16:58 So I can make these links without needing to do the conversion earlier.

17:06 I have brought the camera over to Katana so I can view through it.

17:11 And then I can set off renders or use the render delegate.

17:15 Work with the nuke bridge.

17:17 And see all these elements together.

17:20 So again it doesn't matter how this data is coming in, we can work with it all together

17:24 in one scene.

17:29 And because we can have live renders streamed through a live comp we can make use of this

17:34 to continue making the edits to the lighting in the scene and see how these changes look

17:39 in the context of a comp.

17:41 I'm just demonstrating this to reiterate that in order to use the new native USD workflows

17:47 you won't need to learn an entire new system.

17:50 Your previous Katana workflows really won't need to change for the most part.

17:54 It's just a new way to bring that data in and manipulate it.

17:59 Everything's been engineered to bring you as much flexibility as possible.

18:06 The extent of manipulation of the USD data that will be needed inside Katana will depend

18:11 on your pipeline.

18:13 But in the usual Katana way, once your template is set up it's there ready to be used for

18:19 any number of future projects.

18:22 And as I mentioned earlier this is just the beginning of Katana's native USD journey.

18:28 As USD workflows continue to grow and develop so will Katana.

18:32 The product team have some really exciting plans for the future involving both USD and

18:38 Hydra so keep an eye out for any updates on those plans in the future.

18:43 Thank you everyone for joining me and the Foundry team today.

18:47 You can head over to the Katana Learn page for more information about the features we

18:51 covered in this session.

18:54 Also note that Katana is part of our education collective so most schools have access to

18:59 Katana as part of their current software package.

19:02 This means that if you're a student you can get access to Katana either through your school

19:07 or at the new price of $99.

19:10 Please do feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

19:13 Thank you.

19:14 [end]

19:14 Transcription by CastingWords

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