--
Today, The Foundrylaunches the latest update to its professional look development and lighting tool. Responding to customer demand, KATANA 2.5will offer support forWindows, puttingthe award-winning toolin front of more artists working in VFX, broadcast and animation.
The new port makes KATANA's full toolset available to Windows-based studios, previously unable to take advantage of the famous lighting recipes . Additionally, the toolset is easier to install and supports a number of plug-ins including Renderman, V-Ray, Arnold and recently 3Delight.
Andy Whitmore, chief product officerat The Foundry said, The Foundry is constantly striving to help artists be more creative by providing them with the best software solutions in the industry. Launching on Windows and adding support for more industry-standard renderers is a fantastic example of us giving artists more flexibility to work the way they want.
KATANA is a powerful look development and lighting tool that can offer huge benefits to studios of all sizes, so we're thrilled to be announcing its Windows launch. Now even more artists can benefit from the tools that KATANA offers to make their workflows quicker and more efficient.
Equally suited to both short and long-form animation and VFX projects, KATANA's unique design was created to help artists conquer a notoriously time-consuming process. Used in studios from Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar to Atomic Fiction, KATANA allows artists to turn creative lighting setups into recipes that can be shared amongst the team, cutting down the time it takes to turn out complicated shots.
KATANA has become the bedrock of our pipeline, said Kevin Baillie, co-founder at Atomic Fiction. Big scenes, experimental lighting set-ups, we can throw anything at it and it'll give us production-ready results that we can share up and down the chain. With timelines getting shorter and shorter, you need tools like KATANA around; there's no other way to get the work done.
Pricing/availability
KATANA 2.5 is available today as a beta release and will be shipping soon; supported platforms areLinux RHEL Centos 6 and Windows 7 64-bit. To find out more about all of KATANA's features and benefits, visit www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/katana.For information on pricingand how to purchase, or to request a trial as part of the beta program, contact: sales@thefoundry.co.uk.
What else is new in KATANA 2.5?
Color and float ramp widgets
Now you can easily select a range of colors or floating-point grayscale values to use as an input to a shader or light with an intuitive, visual UI that offers a more artist-friendly look development experience than in previous versions. The color and float ramp widgets can be used for parameters directly within KATANA, or added to tools in third-party plug-in renderers.
Gaffer Three light filter support
It's now possible to add light filters-such as barn doors, blockers or gobos that stop or reduce the effect of a light for certain parts of the scene-directly to lights in Gaffer Three nodes, KATANA's default lighting tool. This both streamlines the workflow by allowing you to edit all of your lighting information in a single place, and reduces node graph complexity.
Online searchable help and developer documentation
Whether you're an artist or a developer, having easy access to the help or documentation you need is crucial. Now, KATANA's user, reference and technical guides have been combined into a single HTML-based, searchable system, while the developer documentation is now presented as an online, searchable developer guide that can be easily and regularly updated.
Performance profiling diagnostics
Diagnosing performance issues in complex projects is now easier, thanks to a new mode that enables KATANA to record the time taken by every step when processing a scene. TDs can export and visualize this data in order to help determine the source of the slowdown, and use their findings to optimize the scene.
About The Foundry
The Foundry is a leading global developer of creative software used to deliver high-end visual effects and 3D content for the design, visualization and entertainment industries. The portfolio empowers artists to create inspiring and technical images and visual experiences in media production (film, commercials, episodic television, gaming, and virtual and augmented reality), and product and industrial design.
The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in London, with offices in Silicon Valley, Manchester, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Dublin and Austin. In November 2015 Alex Mahon was appointed as CEO while Bill Collis became president.
Clients include Pixar, Mercedes-Benz, ILM, Double Negative, The Moving Picture Company, Walt Disney Animation, Weta Digital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Skullcandy.
In 2015, the London Stock Exchange named The Foundry one of its 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain.
The Foundry, its logo and product names are registered trademarks in the UK, USA and/or other countries.
###
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
-- 
