Improve your ROI
- • Work in parallel across multiple stages of production
- • Speed up production processes
- • Achieve more within a day’s work
- • Get the most out of your resources
What is Katana?
Fast and formidable, Katana is a look development and lighting powerhouse, tackling creative challenges with ferocity and ease. It arms artists with the creative freedom and scalability to exceed the needs of today’s most demanding CG-rendering projects.
Features
Studios
Power up your pipeline
Flexible USD-optimised tech, combined with numerous APIs, and multiple commercial renderers, make Katana the Swiss Army knife of your pipeline.
See all featuresPioneering rendering
Katana’s Foresight Rendering workflows, comprised of Multiple Simultaneous Renders and Networked Interactive Rendering, provide artists with scalable feedback for faster iterations.
See all featuresArtists
Artist-focused lighting
Light at the speed of thought thanks to cutting-edge Lighting Tools, empowering artists to light whole sequences of shots with Katana’s industry-leading, multi-shot workflows.
See all featuresCollaborative look development
Katana is made to drive the look development of hero or high-volume assets while seamlessly collaborating with shot production.
See all featuresKatana 8.0 — What's new
Katana 8.0 now comes with complete roundtripping — to and from USD — within the application. Combined with Katana’s production-proven framework, this roundtrip provides a fully supported fallback mechanism that enables you to migrate your teams to USD — in your own time and without risk!
What’s more, Katana 8.0’s USD exporting capabilities give you even more power, so that you can bring entire USD layers and stages back up the pipeline to share with other departments.
Benefits
Studios
World-class technology
- • Use Katana, Nuke, and Mari together for unmatched power
- • Unlock pioneering production rendering workflows
- • Enjoy seamless integration with multiple renderers, APIs, and USD
Artists
Hassle-free creativity
- • Implement art direction with precision
- • Make the right choices faster
- • Avoid layers of technical complexity
- • Solve problems faster and tackle the next challenge sooner
Perfect for teams
- • Share work seamlessly
- • Harmonize across departments
- • Safely integrate updates from downstream departments
- • Make and share tools that solve group problems
30 days to lighting success
Want to maximize your trial? Follow our calendar, and by the end of the 30 days, you’ll go from learning key concepts to discovering collaboration through LiveGroups and everything in between. Get ticking and reach your goals!
Debunking the myths of visual effects pipeline integration
USD made easy: Katana ships with a ready-made USD plug-in to make the move to USD as cohesive and seamless as possible.
Vital integrations and collaborations are at the core of Katana, including render farm plugins like Deadline and Qube, and leading asset management software. This ensures Katana's compatibility with any pipeline.
Our teams are committed to supporting your studio’s switch to Katana and making its integration into your pipeline easy and seamless. To learn more about the deployment process, watch Katana Deployment Essentials.
METHOD STUDIOS
"I use Katana because it’s one of the best tools to do my job... It makes work a lot more pleasurable because you spend less time fighting with the software and more time doing your actual job."
SPIN VFX
"From one scene file, they can light 10, 20, 100 shots. We’ve seen a tremendous increase in our productivity."
ANIMAGRAD
"Comparing our previous approach to our current, Katana reduces our man hours by up to 80%!"
LAIKA
"We did some unique things in Katana… which allowed a team of 3 people to bust through 40 some odd characters in a relatively short amount of time."
ILM
"Because we had a bunch of lighting templates set up for bb8 in Katana we were able to put him in there throw some lights in there and make him look amazingly real in just a matter of hours."
SONY
"Some scenes were literally dealing with several million unique shapes. Katana allowed us to handle these monumental scenes with grace.”
LAIKA
"I’ve never used anything that allows us to work on so many shots simultaneously and also handle asset look dev in one location. I really can’t imagine a pipeline without it."
WETA DIGITAL
"Katana has streamlined our lighting pipeline, freeing up our artists to focus more fully on their craft. The performance improvements in the new release should reduce artist iteration time and allow for more sophisticated lighting setups."
RODEO EFFECTS
"Katana will allow you to change your rendering pipeline to a rendering machine, and a rendering machine that goes twice as fast as anything else you might have up your sleeve."
SONY
"Katana looks to be a real benefit to our look dev teams in terms of speed and flexibility. We are excited about the potential for speedups in getting to first pixel for our shot lighting teams.”
WETA DIGITAL
"With Katana, we were able to block the lighting across the shot very quickly in a coherent way, just as a DP on set would have done."
Exclusively available to new customers requiring up to 10 interactive seats
Minimum 3 year term
Subscribe
$2,499/yr*
- Interactive artist session license
- 3Delight interactive rendering included. Other renderers require their own license
- Access to technical support
Subscribe
$209/yr*
- Unlock Katana’s Foresight Rendering power
- Allows the use of Katana in batch, shell, and script mode
- Required for command-line rendering with any renderer plugin
Available to existing customers, and studios requiring more than 10 interactive seats
Subscribe
$4,409/yr*
- Interactive artist session license
- 3Delight interactive rendering included. Other renderers require their own license
- Access to technical support
Subscribe
$339/yr*
- Unlock Katana’s Foresight Rendering power
- Allows the use of Katana in batch, shell, and script mode
- Required for command-line rendering with any renderer plugin
Katana and Mari: the ultimate look development software duo
Interoperability between Katana and Foundry’s 3D texture painting tool Mari is a huge part of Katana’s past and future development plans to streamline look development workflows everywhere.
Mari is built for today’s most complex creative challenges. It ships with the Arnold Standard Surface, V-ray, and 3Delight render engines, plus RenderMan for Mari. Using these, artists can paint textures in Mari with a higher degree of confidence that their art will look correct in the final render. This reduces feedback loops between Mari and Katana and offers a smoother look development process.
Who’s using Katana
Shaping the lighting artists of the future
Discover how UTS Animal Logic Academy is inspiring future artists, and giving them everything they need to succeed in their dream roles in the VFX industry.
Read now
Why Rodeo FX adopted Katana into their pipeline
Rodeo FX call Katana the best software for lighting on the market—here’s why.
Watch nowFAQ
How long does it take the average user to get used to Katana?
Artists who only have to work in a Katana pipeline can be trained in a day. Most people are very comfortable in their first week. Staff that need to make pipeline choices, teach others, etc. will need more time if they are new to Katana. If you need support with Katana, download our free 30 days to success Katana calendar with the latest tutorials, tips and tricks to support you on your journey.
Where can I find Katana tutorials?
For tips, tricks and tutorials to help you get up to speed with Katana, please visit the Katana Foundry Learn page.
How long does it take to get Katana set up in my pipeline?
This depends on how complex your existing pipeline is and what needs to be changed. Some clients have produced commercial work in the first month, whereas others have taken several months. Contact Foundry to discuss how long it might take your team.
Where can I find case studies about studios like mine using Katana?
Studios of all sizes find success with Katana. Check out our Insights Hub for stories on how Katana works as part of a wider pipeline, different use cases and processes, and the benefits it brings to look development and lighting workflows.
What training resources and opportunities are there for studios and artists getting set up with Katana?
Foundry has an ever-growing set of learning resources. Independent artists and some schools have published resources. Katana licenses are available for individuals automatically for 30 days with the option to ask for a further 60-day extension if they are learning Katana at home.
How many Renders do I need per GUI?
This varies based on your particular scenario, but we typically see clients using 10–20 render licenses for each interactive license. Most clients use at least five render licenses per interactive license. With the Katana 4 Foresight workflows, render licenses can power additional interactive capacity for artists.
What is the licensing model?
Find out more about purchasing and licensing with our Licensing FAQs
Experience Katana
Get first-hand insight into how exactly Katana can fit into your pipeline.
Discover the creative capabilities of Katana with a free 30-day trial.