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MantraForKatana
Copyright (c) 2014-2019, Davide Selmo
See LICENSE.txt for the license text
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This software is provided "as is", and is entirely unconnected to any
development work done by The Foundry or Side Effects.
Please don't use the usual The Foundry or Side Effects support channels
for any questions or issues relating to this software.
Email ds_gfx@zoho.com instead.
All trademarks are the properties of their respective holders.
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MantraForKatana is a renderer plug-in for The Foundry's Katana that allows
users to render using Side Effects' Mantra renderer.
Install and usage instructions
------------------------------
- Set up the build environment:
- Set the KATANA_HOME environment variable
- Initialize the Houdini environment
- Build and install the plug-ins:
- Change directory to src/ and run
make && make install
- Add the content of the VRAYprocedural file in src/Procedural to
the content of the VRAYprocedural file in your ~/houdinix.x folder
- Set up the application environment
- Set the KATANA_RESOURCES environment variable to include the
Resources sub-folder
- Set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include Houdini libraries search path.
If the Houdini environment is correctly set, the $HDSO variable can
be used
Tested with Katana 1.5v1,1.5v2 and Houdini 13.0.198.21
Current limitations
-------------------
- No support for display drivers yet, all renders will be targeted to MPlay
- Basic for Mantra shaders.
The RendererInfo plug-in is very basic and it only implements methods
needed to advertise the renderer plug-in.
- Support for polymesh and subdmesh locations only
- Basic support for GenericAssign global settings
- No support for GenericAssign object settings
Know issues
-----------
- HDF5 conflicts
Katana and Mantra use different versions of Alembic and HFD5, this could
make your renders fail. If that's the case, disable the HDF5 version
check using:
export HDF5_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK=1
Alternatively the Katana Alembic_In plug-in can be re-built linking
against Alembic libraries provided with Houdini
- ZLib conflicts
Katana and Mantra use different versions of ZLib. If you experience crashes
when saving your scene try to force Katana's ZLib to be loaded first by
setting the LD_PRELOAD environment variable when starting Katana:
LD_PRELOAD=$KATANA_HOME/bin/ZLib/libz.so $KATANA_HOME/katana