Katana is a powerful look development and lighting tool that gives artists the flexibility and scalability to handle demanding CG rendering projects with ease. It’s USD-optimised technology, APIs, and support for multiple renderers make it a versatile pipeline tool.
Navigating Katana
Panels, Shortcuts, & Navigation
This video introduces Katana’s core interface, covering key panels like the node graph, scene explorer, viewer, and parameters tab. The tutorial also explains deferred loading, working sets for scene control, and how the viewer and render delegates are used to preview scenes and renders efficiently.
Customising Katana’s UI
This video explains how to customise Katana’s UI by rearranging, docking, and detaching panels for different workflows, including multi-screen setups. It also covers saving and switching layouts, as well as adjusting preferences to tailor the interface to your needs.
Useful AI Tips
This video covers useful Katana UI tips, including example projects, selective rendering tools, region-of-interest rendering, node graph display options, pixel inspection, cache flushing, and more. It also highlights key debugging features to help troubleshoot scenes efficiently.
Bringing Assets Into Your Scene
Adding Objects and Loading Assets
This video explains how to add and manage assets in Katana, including importing geometry (like Alembic files), organizing scene hierarchy, merging multiple elements, and using relative file paths to ensure assets remain linked when projects are shared or moved.
Removing Objects from the Scene
This video explains how to remove unwanted objects in Katana using the Prune node, including targeting specific scene elements (like cameras and lights) with location paths and using basic collection expressions to clean up a scene.
Transforming
Objects
This video explains how to move and adjust objects in Katana using transform tools and nodes, covering how to translate, scale, and rotate assets, and the difference between adding new transformations and editing existing ones.
Creating and Positioning Cameras
This video explains how to create and position cameras in Katana, including adding them to a scene, viewing through the camera for accurate placement, and adjusting settings like field of view for better composition.
Setting Up Multiple Camera Angles
This video explains how to create and manage scene variations in Katana using graph state variables, demonstrating how to switch between different camera angles with a variable-driven setup for more flexible workflows.
Working With Materials and Lights
Creating and Assigning a Material
This video explains how to create and assign materials in Katana using a Network Material Create node, build a basic shader (like an Arnold standard surface), and apply it to a 3D object using a Material Assign node, while also verifying the assignment through scene attributes and render settings.
Setting off Interactive Renders
This video explains how to set up and manage rendering in Katana, including using preview vs live renders, viewing outputs through the catalog and monitor, and enabling scene update controls so changes automatically refresh the live render.
Placing a Dome and Key Light
This video explains how to create and control lighting in Katana using Gaffer3 nodes and built-in lighting tools, including adding different light types, adjusting their position and properties, and using interactive viewport controls to refine the scene lighting while monitoring live render updates.
Loading Diffuse and Specular Texture Files to a Material
This video explains how to add and connect texture maps in Katana using image nodes with an Arnold standard surface shader, including setting up UDIM workflows, using relative file paths, and controlling material properties like specular response through texture-driven inputs.
Adding Subsurface Scattering
This video explains how to add and refine additional texture maps in Katana, focusing on subsurface scattering—how to control its appearance using maps and shader parameters, and how to fine-tune results with color correction for a more realistic material.
Adding a Normal Map
This video explains how to add and use a normal map in Katana, including connecting it through a normal map node, understanding how it affects surface detail by altering lighting response, and adjusting its strength to enhance the appearance of fine textures.
Setting Up Multiple Materials
This video explains how to create and manage multiple materials in Katana using a Network Material Create node, including organizing materials, assigning them to different objects, and building separate shading networks within a single, structured setup.
Light Linking
This video explains how to use light linking in Katana to control which objects are affected by specific lights, allowing for more precise and artistic lighting by including or excluding objects from a light’s influence.
Changing the Lighting for Different Camera Angles
This video explains how to create different lighting setups in Katana for multiple camera angles using variable switches and Gaffer3 overrides, allowing you to adjust and refine lighting per shot or view for more flexible, shot-based workflows.
Rendering
Changing the Resolution
This video explains how to adjust render settings in Katana, including selecting the camera, renderer, and resolution, updating the viewer to match output settings, and comparing renders using preview and multi-view tools.
Adding Depth of Field
This video explains how to adjust render-specific settings in Katana using renderer-specific global settings nodes (like Arnold), including tweaking parameters such as depth of field and using variable setups to apply different render settings for different camera angles.
Saving Your Renders to Disk
This video explains how to save and export renders in Katana, covering both exporting images from the catalog and setting up disk renders with render nodes, output paths, and render output settings, along with managing render jobs using the queue system.
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