SUMMARY
This article is meant to provide a getting started guide for installing, setting up, and using Katana.
MORE INFORMATION
Download
Katana is currently supported on both Linux and Windows operating systems. You can download the latest version from our product page here: https://www.foundry.com/products/katana/download
Installation and licensing
To install and license Katana on Windows, please follow the instructions on the Installing on Windows page of the Katana Install Guide.
Installing Katana on Linux is covered in the Installing on Linux page of the Katana Install Guide.
For full information on licensing Katana depending on license type, please refer to these articles:
To render your Katana scene you will require a dedicated renderer. More information on the available renderers renderer plug-ins that work with Katana can be found on the Supported Renderers page of the Katana Install Guide.
NOTE: You can also find an article providing a full example launcher script for Katana, with the required resources (including renderers and renderer plug-ins) here:
- Q100242: How to Launch Katana With Third-party Renderer Plugins Using a Launcher Script For Windows
- Q100272: How to Launch Katana With Third-party Renderer Plugins Using a Launcher Script For Linux
Documentation
The Katana documentation is now HTML based with search functions and can be accessed at the following links:
Install Guide - https://learn.foundry.com/katana/current/Content/ug/installation_licensing/installation_licensing.html
User Guide - https://learn.foundry.com/katana/current/Content/user_guide.html (includes the User, Technical and Reference Guides)
Developer Guide - https://learn.foundry.com/katana/current/dev-guide/
The User Guide and Developer Guide can also be accessed via the Help menu within the Katana UI.
NOTE: You can find definitions for the most commonly used terms throughout the Katana application and documentation in the Glossary of Katana Terms Resource.
NOTE: If you are new to Katana, you can find tutorials that will guide you through your first steps to use and understand Katana here: https://learn.foundry.com/katana
Example projects
To help you get started, we have some useful example projects accessible through the Help menu from inside Katana, or within your Katana installation directory under: $KATANA_HOME\demos\katana_files
The compilation of example projects is designed to demonstrate a number of techniques within Katana. They cover texture resolving concepts, defining AOVs, using OpScripts, creating and using Look Files, and should be a good starting point for new users.
Community forums
Our public Katana forums for users and developers can be accessed here:
https://community.foundry.com/discuss/katana
As public forums these are aimed at being discussion areas for general issues about Katana, as well as a way of getting feedback and advice from all the existing expert users around the world.
Support
For formal support from Foundry, such as to report bugs or request new features, you can use our Support Portal to open a Support ticket by following the instructions in the "How to raise a support ticket" article.
Our Support Portal hosts the Katana Knowledge Base which contains multiple articles explaining different topics of Katana, and the public Bug Tracker which exposes the lists of known issues in Katana.
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