Katana needed the flexibility to build a solution that suited their needs, aligned with their skillset, and interoperated easily with their existing pipeline. Omniverse’s modular components allowed them to integrate only what they needed from the platform. For example, the COATcreate high-fidelity viewport provides photoreal, ray-traced rendering, powered by the Omniverse RTX Renderer. The overall experience and user-friendly interface is delivered over the WebGL API, and pixels are streamed from the cloud.
COATcreate accesses CAD data, represented as USD, allowing a user to visualize and change scene data in real time, and manage a set of preconfigured variant sets such as trim, colors, and wheel options. Katana also built simple animation features such as animated cameras, and interactive car components including doors and the hood. This enables the user to easily create stills or animations for any project.
"COAT and USD unlock the ability to create high-quality, photorealistic content, enabling designers and art directors to create what they want in real time," said Cappy Childs, chief operating officer at Katana Studio. “Previously, you spend all this time preparing data for one shot, and then throw it away. Now we can repurpose it later for other shots. It’s like a paradigm shift for artists and clients because they're creating something with longevity versus single use.”
The Katana team developed technology to further leverage OpenUSD and Omniverse integration, named Virtual Variant Sets. These simplify how users access and toggle through multiple variants of different assets, such as the car or environment options that have been created during the data prep stage.
“We also capture metadata in the USD file and incorporate it into rendered stills, allowing users to share a live link,” said Damian Fulman, global director of technology at Katana Studio. “This way, they can easily return to the same state or reload the image in the future, even if there are changes to the scene or the car.”