The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), formed in 2023 by Pixar, Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, in conjunction with the Joint Development Foundation, fosters the continued development, evolution, and standardization of OpenUSD to make large-scale 3D projects more manageable, efficient, and creatively ambitious.
As more organizations contribute to the advancement of OpenUSD, all users can benefit from the collective progress. For example, Autodesk Maya’s USD plug-in is based on the open-source plug-ins that both Pixar and Animal Logic originally wrote to use USD for Maya. And in turn, Autodesk has made its Maya USD plug-in an open-source project. In recent years, Autodesk has integrated OpenUSD workflows into more content creation tools, including 3ds Max, Arnold, and Bifrost for Maya.
Universal Scene Description, now known as OpenUSD, is the most robust open-source software for data interchange within 3D scenes. This highly collaborative system can contain many asset sources and is becoming the standard for 3D visual media production, architecture, design manufacturing, and other industries.
Animation, visual effects (VFX), and game studios have struggled for decades with poor interoperability between tools in their production pipelines. Faced with the challenge of moving data from one place to another, studios built elaborate pipelines to manage data interoperability, often including customized tools.
Even Pixar experienced problems with the interchange of data between different applications. After Pixar’s 2012 movie Brave, the studio decided that its scene descriptions had become so complex that it needed a real solution. That year, Pixar developed Universal Scene Description (USD) to deal with the overwhelming complexity of having too many different APIs and file formats within their 3D pipeline. In 2016, Pixar released USD as open-source code so it could become a standard for the VFX and animation industries. Pixar realized that all studios had the same problem with complexity management, and by making Universal Scene Description open-source, it would be an extensible format that other parties could improve, sharing the benefits with everyone.
OpenUSD solves several workflow and complexity challenges for creating 3D scenes. As an open-source standard, OpenUSD provides an extensible common language that’s interoperable between compatible software and platforms. Its system of layered data allows non-destructive editing for easy collaboration. Multiple artists can work on the same asset at the same time using OpenUSD’s versioning features to merge everyone’s work. OpenUSD can also provide fast access to enormous datasets, which enables real-time playback and the ability to edit complex scenes interactively.
One major benefit of OpenUSD is it’s system-agnostic design, so you can use it with ease across multiple platforms and programs. But how does OpenUSD work with solutions like Maya and 3ds Max?
Integration
Integration is easy with the open-source USD for Maya extension and USD for 3ds Max extension. These extensions allow everyone involved in the production process to work seamlessly within Maya, 3ds Max, and other software that supports OpenUSD as needed.
Open-source
As with OpenUSD itself, the code for the USD for Maya and USD for 3ds Max plugins is open-source and constantly evolving and improving. Users can directly contribute to the code for these plugins on GitHub.
The main purpose of OpenUSD is to allow creators to work on their 3D worlds seamlessly across different platforms and software packages. With that in mind, we’ve made sure that this functionality carries across to our Arnold rendering software and the Bifrost procedural VFX plugin for Maya.
A variety of components and tools are available for using Arnold with Universal Scene Description, including Hydra Render Delegate, Arnold Procedural for OpenUSD, and schemas for describing scenes in OpenUSD.
The Bifrost USD library makes it possible to manipulate data types like layer and stage, and to use the Bifrost Graph Editor to create or author OpenUSD scene graphs procedurally.
Autodesk Flow is our industry cloud for media and entertainment. Its aim is to unify teams and data throughout the production lifecycle, and OpenUSD is at the heart of that. By using the OpenUSD standard, Autodesk Flow allows production data to move seamlessly from from tool to tool and department to department.
Exchange USD 3D scene data between different software and tools seamlessly with Universal Scene Description’s common language and file format, designed for interoperability.
The USD software ecosystem is as extensible as the 3D worlds animators create with it. APIs can modify the framework’s simulation, rendering, collaboration, editing, composing, and other functions.
The layering system within USD software allows non-destructive data editing, which makes collaboration between artists and studios more rewarding and less risky.
The Alliance for OpenUSD brings together top industry partners Pixar, Adobe, Apple, NVIDIA, and Autodesk. Many other leading companies are joining to make OpenUSD the industry standard.
Universal Scene Description’s asset resolver is file-system agnostic. It helps organize, manage, and quickly access digital assets regardless of the data storage model or data sources used.
USD’s Hydra rendering architecture provides visualization flexibility by working with custom-made and third-party renderer plug-ins, which several vendors have written.
Whereas other file formats are flat and don’t allow for multiple components of the same scene, OpenUSD is comprised of multiple layers, which is one of its key strengths. This makes it possible to:
Combine assets
Different assets—such as an object, a 3D character, a light source, or anything else—are added to the scene in separate independent but connected layers, fostering a dynamic and collaborative post-production working environment where creativity can thrive.
Organize layers
Layers can be easily combined and ordered in OpenUSD according to the requirements of the scene, so you can experiment to make it match your vision.
Creation without destruction
One of the most useful aspects of OpenUSD is its non-destructive workflow. This means that several people can work on the same scene simultaneously without disrupting each other’s contribution. Effectively, you can make edits and alterations to the files, and they won’t affect anyone else’s work unless they choose to include the modified files in their iteration.
For more information on how OpenUSD software workflows work, including a live demo, check out our webinar, cracking the case on OpenUSD: How to achieve glorious 3D interoperability.
OpenUSD workflows can make VFX more efficient in terms of time and cost. Dexter Studios, a Seoul-based digital production company, has used Universal Scene Description to streamline its workflows. By integrating OpenUSD into their virtual production pipelines, they have generated world-class visuals within shorter postproduction timelines. You can find out more in this video on Harnessing OpenUSD and Virtual Production for Efficiency.
Discover how Qvisten Animation conquers creative workflow complexities using OpenUSD, revolutionizing their animation process with streamlined efficiency and enhanced collaboration.
Image courtesy of Qvisten Animation
Dexter Studios, a Seoul-based digital production company working on both Korean and international projects, is renowned for its virtual production and VFX work, including projects such as ‘Alienoid’, ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’, ‘Along with the Gods’, and ‘Gyeongseong Creature’. Dexter Studios has made strong moves towards Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD), including seamless integration into their pipeline using custom tools to make workflows more efficient between teams.
Image courtesy of Dexter Studios
In this SIGGRAPH Session, hear how Fin Design + Effects used open standards like OpenUSD alongside Autodesk Flow Production Tracking and Maya to accelerate a major motion picture film project, The Creator.
Discover how OpenUSD is opening the door to seamless connectivity in many different industries, from filmmaking to architecture and engineering. This video covers how OpenUSD is being used in the media and entertainment industry, how it’s being adopted by other industries, and explores the role of the Alliance for OpenUSD in the evolution of the standard.
Get the details on AOUSD, the alliance of Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, NVIDIA, and Pixar to promote USD’s standardization, development, and evolution.
Create an OpenUSD model, edit a USD layer, save USD data, and more with Maya’s USD integration.
Hear from chief members of the AOUSD about how USD began and learn about its future in promoting interoperability across 3D ecosystems.
Use OpenUSD across Maya’s toolset to store, edit, and export complex asset data like modeling, materials, lighting, and shading variations in a single USD container.
OpenUSD organizes a 3D scene into a hierarchy of prims (objects/elements), which have attributes (properties/characteristics) associated with them. Universal Scene Description also uses multiple layers of scene data, each layer with its own prims, attributes, and overrides, which modify specific prims and attributes without altering their original data. Variants and variant sets enable multiple representations of the same object or scene.
The textual USD Stage Description (USD Stage) language describes scene hierarchy and properties in plain text files.
Overall, OpenUSD is an efficient way to edit and collaborate on 3D scene data across production pipelines and has become standardized with native support within leading software.
There are many advantages to using OpenUSD (formerly Universal Scene Description) for managing scene data. First is interoperability—USD was made to exchange 3D scene data between different software and platforms using a common language and file format.
OpenUSD’s layering system sets up two major advantages: non-destructive editing, which makes it easier for artists to experiment and modify scene data without risk, and scalability, where artists can work on separate scene layers and efficiently manage complex scenes without duplicating tons of data.
Other OpenUSD advantages include versioning and collaboration features, performance and efficiency, flexibility, and extensive industry support.
OpenUSD works alongside OpenColorIO, an open-source color management solution. This ensures that colors stay consistent throughout the pipeline. OpenColorIO is integrated with several Autodesk solutions, including 3ds Max, Maya, Arnold, and Flame.
Yes, Open USD and MaterialX work together to ensure accurate rendering and shading of objects, enabling consistent representation of 3D object materials and look development across multiple platforms.
Yes, OpenUSD and OpenRV work in tandem, so you can review sequences easily and as they are intended. Open RV is an open-source version of our original RV playback software.
