Foundry Katana
The look development and lighting powerhouse.
Overview
Katana is a look development and lighting tool developed by Foundry that is designed to handle extremely complex scenes and high-volume asset workflows. It provides a node-based environment that allows artists to define and control the look of assets procedurally, enabling a highly efficient and collaborative pipeline for VFX and animation studios.
✨ Key Features
- Node-based workflow for lighting and look development
- Deferred loading and processing for handling massive scenes
- Rule-based application of materials and lights
- Live rendering with support for major render engines
- Collaborative tools for sharing and overriding setups
- Foresight Rendering for simultaneous multi-shot rendering
🎯 Key Differentiators
- Unmatched performance and scalability for handling extremely complex scenes.
- Procedural, recipe-based workflow is highly efficient for large teams.
- Separates the artistic work of look development from the technical work of lighting, allowing for specialization.
Unique Value: Provides a highly scalable and efficient framework for look development and lighting that enables studios to tackle the most complex CG projects with greater speed and collaboration.
🎯 Use Cases (4)
✅ Best For
- Originally developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks and now used by many of the world's leading VFX and animation studios.
- Integral to the pipeline for lighting and rendering on numerous animated features and VFX-heavy films.
- Proven to handle scenes with trillions of polygons and vast numbers of assets.
💡 Check With Vendor
Verify these considerations match your specific requirements:
- 3D modeling, rigging, or animation.
- Small-scale projects or individual artists (it's designed for large pipelines).
- Users who prefer a traditional, layer-based workflow.
🏆 Alternatives
While lighting can be done in Maya or Houdini, Katana is built from the ground up to handle scenes of a complexity that would be unmanageable in those applications. Its workflow is specifically designed for the division of labor found in large studios, making it more efficient in that context than the more generalist approach of Houdini's Solaris.
💻 Platforms
✅ Offline Mode Available
🔌 Integrations
🛟 Support Options
- ✓ Email Support
- ✓ Phone Support
- ✓ Dedicated Support (Enterprise tier)
🔒 Compliance & Security
💰 Pricing
✓ 30-day free trial
Free tier: 30-day free trial. Free non-commercial version for students and learners.
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