We're excited to announce KtoA 4.5.2.0, built on Arnold 7.5.2.0. This release brings Gaussian Splats to Katana and faster, more interactive live rendering, along with the latest Arnold core features, plus 9 bug fixes for a smoother, more stable experience.
What's new in KtoA
✨ Gaussian Splats
Bring photoreal 3D Gaussian Splatting scenes into Katana with the new ArnoldGaussianSplats supertool. Load splat data from PLY files and shade it with the Gaussian Splat Shader.
⚡ Improved IPR
Live Renders are now faster and more interactive, for a smoother look-development experience.
New from Arnold core
🎨 Stylized and non-photorealistic looks
Two new tools for cel-shading and stylized rendering. Tone Zones split your lighting into clean brightness bands for that hand-drawn look, while Shader to RGBA lets you take full lighting results into your shading tree for total creative control.
⚡ Faster performance
- GPU scene updates up to 43% faster for smoother interactive editing
- PLY meshes load 1.2 to 1.4x faster
- Production scenes start up to **5x faster** thanks to optimized USD instancing
🖼️ Sharper denoising
The noice denoiser now preserves fine detail, such as fur, whiskers, and fabric, without over-blurring, and eliminates stray black-pixel artifacts.
📖 Read the full release notes here: KtoA 4.5.2.0 Release Notes
// Stephen Blair
// Arnold Renderer Support
