When I first tried the USD workflow myself I couldn't believe it actually worked. Cross-software file formats retaining all the data, crazy! If you want to learn more about USD, see what Omniverse has to offer for you, or join the GTC talks on USD in March; make sure to use the links below! Learn more during OpenUSD Day at GTC 2024: nvda.ws/492kEqN Download NVIDIA Omniverse for free: nvda.ws/3u8aZQ4 Register for GTC 2024: nvda.ws/42wrBO0
It's the other way around. Files can't be compatible with your software, the software has to be compatible with your file. The software is doing the reading and writing of your file, no matter of what kind of file is is. As long as you can make out the file structure you absolutely can make your software read it and write it. The file can't do jack ish.
What the file CAN do however, is have all the bits and bobs saved in a generic enough way that it makes it easier for the software developers to write an import-export function. Seriously, just the fact that it's *ment* to be used by everyone means that there's no pesky obfuscation or stupid shit making it hell to port over.
Yeah you're right. But to any regular artist, who's not necessarily tech-savy or privy on becoming that, it's kinda potato potatoe. USD is trying to simplify (understatement) the process of using multiple tools in your pipeline and that's the message im trying to send!
Technically yes, practically, not so much. Case in point: Just about nothing can read .Blend files from Blender, and the things that _can_ do it badly, usually just some small subset of basic information. It's not impossible to do. But it is incredibly difficult. Why? Because .blend files are internally actually a representation of nearly Blender's entire memory layout as it's running. That means that .blend is incredibly tightly linked to Blender's source code and the way that blender works. So reading a .blend file flawlessly? It's not quite re-implementing _all_ of blender... but it's not far off. Reading and writing the whole blend file in a meaningful way is basically remaking all of Blender itself from scratch. I would argue that .blend files are an example of a filetype being technologically incompatible with software, it only truly works with Blender itself. This is not an uncommon thing in 3D software. I'll provide another sticking point - sometimes, things are lost in translation. It's very common for there not to be a one to one mapping between concepts in different software, and for it to actually be impossible to transfer from one to the other because there really just isn't a corresponding feature. Here's some examples: Material nodes in Blender mean something totally different from what material nodes mean in Unreal Engine. Even if UE5 could read a .Blend file, it couldn't use the materials in it, since they just don't work the way that unreal engine's materials work (unless both UE5 and Blender agree to stick to a standard, like PBR materials). They are legitimately incompatible, for real technical reasons. Another example, animation drivers and rigs that use them are complete nonsense anywhere outside of Blender, since they literally grab data from addresses based on Blender's internal structure. File formats can very much be incompatible with your software and it's very possible for it to be utterly impractical to write software that can read and write them. All that needs to happen is that your file format needs to reach a certain level of complexity, and then it becomes nearly inevitable.
OH! I thought of another one - _LISP._ This is pretty common in CAD software, especially the really old ones that have been around for a few decades. See, what LISP is - it's an entire programming language, AND a file format. The big thing with Lisp is that they treat code itself as data, and can store data as programming code. If your file format is lisp based, that's a real pickle. Because that means that reading it is going to involve re-implementing an _entire programming language_ from scratch. Usually one that's totally proprietary and completely undocumented. (AutoCAD does this)
@@MustacheMerlin You wrote a lot and usually I just tldr, but wanted to let you know I appreciate it because it was insightful. It reminded me how when I open a file I'm working on in Blender, the viewport is exactly where I left it. This is only to better my experience in Blender itself and has no bearing on the next program. From my experience with Blend to Unity and Godot, their importers are not bad if you're not expecting anything advanced. I could be wrong, I don't do this professionally, it almost seems equivalent to an fbx. It seems like a chicken or the egg challenge, where a standard format needs to exist like USD to ensure file formats can be interoperable. What would really impress me is data that is USD exportable is tagged that way, in a way that another program can take the .blend file and retrieve the USD tagged data.
usd is absolutely awesome I can approve, but it's still not practical in many cases because of the file size recently I created rigged fireworks, the glTF file size on average was 6MB while the usdc turned out to be 72MB
Hmm.. it is a lot smaller than alembic though. Maybe it isn't optimized for rigged stuff yet? But that's what I like about USD, it's still very much growing and expanding, being worked on by these major tech companies!
True, it's smaller than alembic. and yes isn't optimized for armature animation, in fact the animation is exported as mesh cache and not armature @@KaizenTutorials
I hope so... but as of now even for shapekeys animations, usdc files are still 30 to 40% larger in size compared to glTF. but the reason why glTF will be mainstream for a while is that it's supported by many web and VR software. I do get a lot of requests for format conversion to glTF for that reason @KaizenTutorials
This video feels less like it's about USD and more like it's an ad for Omniverse and Nvidia as a whole. While I don't mind sponsored segments (money is always nice to have) and NVIDIA isn't exactly an irrelevant sponsor, the integration here just felt hamfisted and coarse. Like specifically stating that Omniverse is *NVIDIA's* Omniverse, even when not stating *Adobe's* Substance Painter or *Autodesk's* Maya, the random out of place close up shot of a 4090 FE with the only real visible detail being the GeForce RTX branding, and constantly showing the Omniverse logo, more often even than the Blender logo. This isn't me trying to be a hater, just wanted to share my thoughts on the sponsor integration in hopes that future videos might have a clearer demarcation between sponsored and unsponsored content, preferably one that's easily skippable for people like me who have no interest whatsoever in any of NVIDIA's products.
Thanks for the honest feedback. NVIDIA plays a major part in the current USD development and so happens to be the sponsor. With the exception of the link mentions in the video the video itself wouldn't have been very different if NVIDIA wasn't the sponsor. I agree that it might not be equal if I don't say Adobe or Autodesk before their product names, but that's just because everyone knows what those are. It feels redundant. Not everyone knows Omniverse! Hope that makes sense :-) I'll take your feedback into consideration for future vids.
Tbh I’m going to have to disagree with you… I think he blended in his sponsorship and the video really well where he gets the job done of not only informing me but entertaining me with a side of a cool program that could be useful without rubbing it in to much
Love this community. Quality content, honest feedback, human response. I didn't get the feel of a shady advertisement, but I'm in a good mood currently.
@butterscothpanda right in the first part of the video he literally states that this video is sponsored by NVIDIA! Are you just ranting because you own an AMD Graphics card??? 😂😂😂 Only joking chill and if you don't want to watch then it's simple, pick a different video but keep in mind that is how these guys make a living by views and sponsorship. Couldn't Imagine you turning down an Rtx 4090 from NVIDIA to make a video promoting NVIDIA, not saying he got a free graphics card just using this as an example. Have fun and keep blendering man. Great USD info BTW so thanks for the video 🤟
Well they started doing it 8 years ago. But AOUSD is only 6 months old and is now the major driving force for this tech to make it mainstream across all software’s! That sounds new enough to me :-)
@@KaizenTutorials OpenUSD is 8 years old, most DCC have started to integrate it years ago, including Blender, there is nothing new here, AOUSD is just an organization aiming at creating a standard for OpenUSD, nothing more!
That's great and all, but why am I being ignored when I request quotes for enterprise? I assume it's because I'm asking for a small pilot program but still... You don't want our money? If the pilot is successful it could lead to a huge buy, but right now I need to convince management it's worth the extreme price.
I'm not even a 3D artist, but this is truly great. Interoperabity is a key thing in every sector that uses any type of software in their workflow. Amazing. Great video and explanation.
Especially when you're working with a non-professional workflow that has some very serious proprietary compatibility issues such as Mac computers and Adobe software. Those two companies are designed to milk every scent out of you not really give you a good experience, you just think you have a good experience because Stockholm Syndrome😂😂
Haha ok, you're not a big fan of Mac and Adobe I assume. Funnily enough though Adobe is a founding member of AOUSD and strives to make USD part of their workflows too.
@@KaizenTutorials it is more and more integrated in pipelines, very efficient, and it supports every data formats you can think of, it's like having FBX, Alembic and OpenVDB put all together but on steroids!
@@KaizenTutorials Houdini has USD since version 18, which came out in 2019, it is not new, a lot of peoples are actually switching to Houdini for scene building and rendering because of Houdini having such a great USD integration, which includes Hydra, MaterialX, and two brand-new Hydra render Engines, Karma CPU, and Karma XPU(GPU).
How is Omniverse useful to port to UE5? Aren’t you doing an extra step by also going through Omniverse then? Btw Omniverse has his own real time rendering right? Any reason to not render it there? Curious about this :)
@@IvoKlerk I use Omni's Blender USD branch to export assets and animations with proper materials to .usd files, then I import those into UE5 with Omni's Connector plugin. honestly speaking, I've tried rendering in Composer (previously named Create) but the quality sucks in comparison, and there is a lot of visual glitches.
Just??!! USD been there for more than a decade now and released to everyone atleast 6 - 7 years ago. and the big studio Pipeline has already matured on USD
You're right that USD isn't new. What is new however is the AOUSD organization which is now giving a huge stimulus of development to USD as a platform with all these major tech companies putting their effort behind it. That's what the big change is and this change was again initiated by Pixar! :-)
"Traditional pipeline": model/UV > export > import to substance > texture > export textures > import to blender > setup textures "USD Pipeline": model/UV > install NVIDIA omniverse > export > import to omniverse > link to substance painter > texture > link back to omniverse > doesn't even show textures working in blender I am not surprised because this is a sponsored video... But how is this faster? Or better? So far all I've seen is having yet another middle-man thrown in the pipeline, it doesn't look like it actually reduced the amount of steps you have to take. Is this just because blender support isn't quite there yet? Don't get me wrong I am hopeful for USD, but as someone who primarily uses blender I haven't seen a compelling reason to use it yet, probably because blender doesn't support it super well natively yet?
You're right that in it's current state USD in Blender isn't optimal. The main advantage now is not having to re-import and export in apps like Substance, Unreal or USD Composer. Blender's USD support is lagging behind and doesn't work natively, which is why it's not perfect yet. You can get the textures to work as well in Blender, but you have to set them up after Substance manually AND everytime you change stuff in Substance you'll have to reload the textures in Blender since Blender doesn't support auto texture reloads currently. Still it really beats the old workflow for me, since it's so easy to make changes in Blender, auto-update that in e.g. USD Composer and Unreal, Substance and then be able to texture it right away and have those textures reflect in USD composer or Unreal as well! NVIDIA is working, through Omniverse, to get a complete live-link going with Blender, since Blender themselves have a lower prio on this, and once they have that up and running doing everything in all the apps simultaneously should be no issue anymore!
You and Smeaf have the most click bait heavy Blender titles lol ... drives me crazy. Just, would imply this happened very recently and not having USD in the title makes me wonder how this video will be indexed going forward. Is there a tag system you both use that maybe helps separate it from the view gathering titles that some of these videos have?
Hmm I don't agree, but I can see what you mean as the titles are part of the RU-vid game. Clickbait however would imply no form of delivery on the promise of the title, which I think I always do! USD is an older tech, but the formation of AOUSD is very new (only 6 months old) and is the propelling force that will turn USD into a global tech for all proprietary softwares. That's new enough for me! As for indexing; YT finds the people that want to watch it. :-)
Well I always thought Click Bait was more something that is formatted in a way for you to click on it, not that it does not deliver useful information but often times it can be misleading or the topic seems entirely different than what is being discussed. Ol Smeaf was probably the first person I saw doing this and trying to apply a more Mr. Beast style to get more clicks and views, and while Mr. Beast does get views his content is pretty ridiculous and I don't know that this same format applies to education. Just seems like something to keep an eye on so I had to say something. For the record though I love the channel @KaizenTutorials ( just so everyone knows )
Your video title is misleading. They didn't "just" change it forever. Working as a pipeline TD I have to say that USD doesn't work so well out of the box. Maya has MayaUSD, Houdini has Solaris and they all have their own implementations of USD. If it comes to details it's not USD as advertised.
I understand your point, however the first iPhone was a pretty shitty phone and the 1st smartphones even worse. That doesn't mean that these products weren't a point of no return for development. USD, although almost 8 years old, is still very much in it's early days. With AOUSD they've 'just' (august 2023) taken a major step in unifying tech giants to build an interoperable file format. We're a long ways from it, but the first step has been taken for sure. That's why I feel the title is correct!
Correct me if I was wrong but... Isn't this just gltf at this point? 🤔🤔🤔 like gltf has all the data as well, no? And btw you can't just give an example that the workflow is now non destructive, that is in no way true... It's still the same workflow and has the same flaws. It's cool to have real time changes without having to export and reimport all the time yes, but any changes to the model and then you gotta retexture again for example. I don't believe in a non-destructive workflow using different softwares or even using the same software unless everything is kinda proceduarly generated and linked in a magical way...
It is very similar to gltf yes, but more compatible with different softwares. Currently the workflow isn’t 100% non destructive no, but NVIDIA and Blender are working on fixing that. So in the not too distant future it should all work non-destructive for real! That’s why it’s so exciting. Plus this way now alone already saves a ton of time, which is important if you do this a lot and make a living with it 💪🏻
For anything outside the team workflow, if you are an individual who won't be sharing data with departments.. USDs are pain in the ass. loads of extra work to set the scene for them. Specially in autodesk tools where important features like light linking doesn't work with USDs.
It might not be for every pipeline no, but in my example pipeline Blender > Substance > USD Composer for example it's awesome. For a solo-artist it really is a gamechanger.
But isn’t it what fbx, obj and gltf does? While it’s a great concept, do you think it’s worth that much effort to put in for small studios? Firstly you’d have to make a scene or a stage as they say, then save each model as usd stage, then merge all the stages into one. Rather just go ahead and make a scene and it ain’t destructible tbh?
I think for a small studio it can be useful, but at the same time it's still early days. USD is being developed fast and in the not too distant future will probably be a lot easier to use for smaller studios!
I've only seen something like this in the ModTools from Call of Duty where the Asset property editor (APE) is directly linked to the level editor. Every change made in APE will be automaticlly updated in the editor in realtime which is pretty neat. It just needs an auto update feature
Did Pixar just change the future of 3D forever? No, because they changed it 8 years ago when USD was released as open source. Your title is disingenuous and incorrect.
I think they did. USD is 8 years old, but AOUSD was only founded 6 months ago by Pixar, joined my other major tech companies and they’re taking this platform to the next level with max interoperability for all software’s!
Omg why did they use that name u.s.d they wasnt something more amercian than that?, g.u.n was a better name, jokes aside Im happy to heard the word interoperability
It’s still relatively ‘new’ yes! The formation of AOUSD by Pixar last year will propel development however. Give it 1-2 years and it’ll take over everything in my opinion!
@@KaizenTutorials that would be great. We've tried to use it in production a bu ch but just like all the others before it, it comes with limitations and you end up having to develop ontop if it. I agree with you though, it's. Great start though.
sounds like an incredibly usefull feature in the future for artist teams, less for solo arrtists i suppose specially if you have to have 3 programms runnin at the same time instead of 1. never the less, this the beginning of USD and perhaps in a few years s gonna be as integrated as a gear in a giant machine. what i wonder tho is simple: when i paint with substance painter and export it as an usd instead of a texture file, how does blender know that this is the base color, and thats the emission map, and this other texture is the normal map? i recon we wont get around savin the image textures themselfes for a while still, be it as a backup to reinstert upon data loss or to plug it into any other software that doesnt support usd. but i apprechiate the effort to makin our lifes easier and am excited to see how itll develop.
The USD file still comes with attached folders that contain relevant data like textures. By using proper naming conventions it can tell Blender to look for those textures. Now this doesn't work perfectly yet as you'll still need to setup the textures in Blender manually. But after that it works and if you change stuff in Substance you can reload the textures in Blender (sadly not automatically... sigh Blender) and the textures will update. Setting it up in blender is just a matter of CTRL+SHIFT+T for the principled setup and selecting the textures that are in the folder where your USD file is also saved and you're good to go from that point on!
I only have a noob understanding of Blender, always got to frustrated with it the few times I tried to learn it. I've seen the file time when looking for assets to do animation in UnReal. So it's really cool that I just randomly found out how cool it is. Also means I'm going to have to get some basic understanding of Blender to do some custom assets.
Try following Blender Guru video playlist titled "Blender 4.0 Beginner Donut Tutorial". After completing it, you should have pretty good idea how to effectively work with Blender.
Hm did they update the USD import/export function in Blender recently? I remember trying it a few months ago and it was not able to transfer all material parameters/values properly. Things like specular values would just be set to a default value for som reason
If you use the Omniverse branch version you’re miles ahead of the main blender branch. So using their nucleus exporter (part of the omniverse branch) it works!
This reminds me that Resolve recently added very rudimentary USD support for Fusion. And I mean VERY rudimentary. It is basically just a previz renderer with no modern bells and whistles. Hmmm. NAB is right around the corner. I do hope they make it much more powerful for v19 or whatever they will show off in April.
Yep Resolve is joining the gang. A lot of software's are still in the early days of USD adoption. But it's coming! A few more years and this will be the main way of doing things. I'm sure of it!
Does that mean that in the future artists can choose the tool of choice to work with rather than having to conform to software that they might not want to use for example working in a company? Can Maya, Cinema 4D, 3Ds Max, Blender and Houdini users all work together now without worrying about what software they're using?
@@KaizenTutorials That would be absolutely amazing, I hope they reach that goal quickly. I can't think of anything more annoying than when you really enjoy using one program only be told to use another because it's an industry preference.
Bro this is personal advice but please change the logo of your channel, something related to your all videos i really skip some of your videos because of it .
@@KaizenTutorialsnothing personal bro I love watching your tutorials and videos and I'm also learning from it it's just my suggestion. Your doing great and keep it up 👏🏻
@constantinosschinas4503 allright, fair enough. I think this is like the 1st smartphone. It’s far from perfect, but it’s still the reason we have these amazing devices today and can’t live without them. USD is similar and AOUSD is the tech giants taking that ‘1sr smartphone idea’ and turning it into high-end devices. It’ll take time, but it’ll get there!
@@KaizenTutorials As others mentioned, it is also the fact that instead of digging more into the format itself, the video oriented more to nvidia and other solutions. But, again, it is the overwhelming title more than the rest that stands out. I get your comparison to phones, given though the complexity and structure of each programme, "non destructive" can never be accomplished, unless a very smart AI feature recogniser is introduced, that translates all objects and their features into editable nodes. I see it more like a dramatic workflow enhancer, but aren't the near perfect realtime importers/synchers like Twinmotion or Unreal LiveSync, or the wonderful Speckle for BIM, already revolutions? We went from hours or days of exporting to single clicks. Substance was a lso a big leap in texture creation workflow and synching, especially that many programmes and realtime engines natively support them. Unreal itself is the revolution. Nanite and Lumen especially really changed 3D forever. Complex scenes can be rendered (if you have the knowledge and skills) in realtime, with outstanding visual fidelity. So i would suggest to keep bold phrases to where they fit only, or we completely loose scale of things and accomplishments. Think about university grades. Personally, if i was ever a teacher, i would reserve anyrhing above 9/10 for seriously gifted students, amd 9.9 for geniuses. 10 would be never an option.
I’m trying to land a job in the industry and I had quit Autodesk Maya for 8 months and transitioned to Blender, looking into the industry and which roles I prefer, they want someone to be proficient in Autodesk 3ds max, with USD I can make everything in blender and also have same file in Autodesk software since they’re still holding strong on being the industry standard, now I need to convince future employers to hire me :’)
Honestly, for 3d modelling, if you are good using one of the 3 softwares (maya, 3DS Max & Blender), you can use pretty much any of the three, you'll just need 2-3 weeks of acclimatization when starting out. After all an exrtude is an extrude, a bevel is a bevel (hemm, chamfer 3ds max ?) a spline is a spline, a bend is a bend, etc. You'll need to get used to the UI but the different tools are usually very similar, they might just have different names. If they don't want to hire you because you've used Maya AND Blender but not 3ds...there might be something else going on.
They invented a problem by making things incompatible in the first place. And now they're inventing a solution - presumably to make more money in the long run. Nothing is just a goodwill project, but I really appreciate this nonetheless.
I have to say I disagree. 'they' are just companies working on their own solutions for problems they saw in a market. These problems are unique and so require unique solutions, which tend to not work on other problems (unique = non-compatible). USD was initially also not there to fix this. It was there to fix Pixar's own problems. But since it grew and was released as open-source, other programmes started including it. This lead to the formation of AOUSD, which is a NON-PROFIT organization aiming to now take this unique solution and adapt it to fix everyone's problems.
In this case, universal scene description is open source so it's free, but it's not really an immediate magical fix to anything as much as it's a way to describe the structure of a whole scene. It came out in 2016, and a lot of studios had a very difficult time implementing it. Some packages like Unreal don't even fully support it, and it's really mostly used in linear content pipelines like film and animation.
openusd is good, but nvidia is not. If I use om to pass models between tools, I have to share them with nvidia, and they will use them for the AI learning, that's not cool.
Three years ago, when I was trying an early version of om in the revit workflow, I once noticed that the agreement listed similar terms regarding the collection of data from free users for deep learning purposes.( so, What data? At that time USD was the only one passed to the om when I logged in.) Due to the urgency at that time, I chosed to agree. Now, I don't believe they suddenly stopped doing that. The om versions are alse updated too frequently, and I haven't reviewed the user terms for every version. I think maybe the delay in implementing the new legislation is their basis for withholding the information.@@KaizenTutorials
Well like I said USD is from 2016. A lot of people don’t know it though, but more importantly with the formation of AOUSD, again initiated by Pixar this tech is going to skyrocket! Companies like NVIDIA and Apple are putting in major effort to speed up the process of a fully interoperable eco-system. Plenty interesting and new if you ask me!
How is that different from Collada? That format failed, because it tried to include the kitchen sink and every program could only read the stuff that it supported itself. This also made it so complicated to implement that most software developers stopped bothering after being able to load a colored cube.
Collada put the burden on the apps to support specific feature subsets. It supported a lot, but few apps committed to support it fully and it became a fragmented mess of half-assed importers and exporters. Another big difference is nobody was reading Collada "live"... it was an interim format to load from or export to. USD, by comparison, is meant to be written out, iterated on, but sourced "live" and fed directly to the renderer and bypassing your DCC for most of its data. Also, USD's "core" is a Pixar-written C++ library that every USD plugin and standalone software sources and uses, so Pixar is responsible for making and delivering all the core functionality. The plugins are merely integrations of API calls to this "core" bit. Nvidia sources it, Blender sources it, Maya sources it. It's all calling the same core. Also, unlike Collada, USD supports extensive layering and composing of various components of an object at runtime, plus nested referencing. Think Photoshop layers, but for 3D scene data. You can thus go crazy and "compose" a USD of USDs that's referencing the topology from one, the unfolded UVs from another, the material definitions from another file, and the vertex deformation cache from another. (And let's not forget USD can store lights and cameras, too.) There is also a "variant" system so an object can have different variations, which is handy for doing subtle things like swapping a character's clothing or props. (Super handy for doing crowds, especially. Oh, did I mention USD has a notion of instancing?) Not only this but USD allows declaring custom IO / datatypes, and has a plugins API to register code to your custom datatypes. (For example, this plugin system is used to be able to make sense of Alembic .abc cache filepaths as topology and vertex animation used inside a USD file.) It also has a curious concept known as "custom path resolvers", which are ways to associate a USD layer's "filepath" with callback code to resolve at runtime. So, for example, you can make a custom resolver that says the text "mysecretserver?asset=bleepbloop&version=latest" will query some private database for the latest filepath of bleepbloop and at runtime it will get queried, resolve to a specific path to be passed on and used to read more data. Pretty neat! TLDR; Collada is old and USD is cool ya'll. Apple has also been pushing "usdz" as a format. It is basically a zipfile of packaged USD data with secondary files (like texture images) included within the same file. It's still just USD under the hood, and they too source Pixar's original C++ library.
@@AlanFregtmanYour never going to fix interpolarity by introducing more file types to support. Parsability is not really the issue. There are many text based formats that have nice features sets. FBX (has the ascii version, for example). Not that parsing a binary format is exactly a problem for a experienced developer. This is a poorly planned idea that seems to ignore the history of this.
Nice video, but I think the title might be a bit misleading. OpenUSD already exist for a long time internally in Pixar. Has been open sourced for more than 6 years. Houdini stage is based on usd for more than 4 year. So it is not new. A lot of work is getting done on OpenUSD. Adobe, Houdini, Blender, Nvidia Omniverse, Maya, ... are all contributing to OpenUSD. Together with MaterialX (created by Autodesk) is makes everything much easier.
USD isn't new no. But the AOUSD is and the efforts that these major tech companies are putting in is also new imo! It's a testimony to how useful usd is and that these big players are investing in it since recently.
So what you're saying is artists should be using USD now? Is this already the standard we should be using, or are there some reasons we should hold off?
Just specific software support for USD features you anticipate using. I use USD in production, but since I'm a fanatic I want to use the latest MAYA USD package at all times because they're rapidly adding more and more USD features. Things you couldn't even imagine doing with formats like FBX. However being on the cutting edge has its disadvantages. I need to wait for my renderer VRAY to offer support for the latest version, or things start to break down, and Unitys support has been painfully slow. That being said, I think the time is here for everyone to start using it as an exchange file format (even though it's so much more) and to start figuring out which features of USD you're interested in, and if all your applications support those on a stable software branch.
Its like Michael said (probably a lot better than I could), but yeah USD is the way forward. But not yet for every project/pipeline. If in it's current state your workflow works with USD I can't recommend it more, but if it's still a bit buggy then doing it the old skool way might be better still.
Very curious about this but your game asset example missed a vital aspect of the process. You didn't address baking normal maps or handling the highpoly/cage. Additionally for something like the cone how does usd compare to fbx in regards to performance and filesize when working with something like unreal engine/Perforce?
A USD crate file will be smaller but comparable in size to a binary FBX. USD reduces file size by making assumptions about missing data instead of writing out default values to the file. However the USD file will carry PBR textures with it while FBX will not.
It kind of depends on what tool you use. Not every tool supports USD obviously and most who do don't support it in two directions YET. Having said that if you want to do your baking in Blender, Marmoset or Substance it's no problem. The process would remain exactly the same and all that data can be transferred using USD.
USD is really old. Not a "new" pipeline. THings do not bome "new" because you just discovered them. And Sorry but no. It does not "work". Nice ad though. Your example is broken. No you can't render or texture anything before you model it. In effect, USD is a more elaborate FBX that has its own restrictions and particularities. It was originally meant as a rendering file format and it has TONS of limitations. You can do many of these things you showed with FBX... it is exactly the same... 99% of all you showed is exactl the same with FBX. :P And no it is not the future at all. :P Many have already started abandoning it. Sorry.
Never said USD is new... the AOUSD is however and a unified front of major tech companies putting effort into a non-profit organization aimed at propelling this tech forward is really awesome and a clear sign USD isn't dead. It's growing, being developed and will eventually become a household platform in 3D.
Could a picture made in AI like Dall-e or ideogram also be layered in multiple prims (to use the jargon) and then be imported in Blender? I saw an .OBJ file could I import any USD file to Blender export it as an OBJ and 3D-print it? I think the first question is harder, the second one maybe but you'ld have to check the files for inconcistencies in layers Amirite?
You could definitely import usd and export as obj to print. Youd have to check the model ofcourse, but it would work for sure. The other question I don’t know yet! It might be possible but it basically depends on if dall-e supports usd and layering.
This guy is definitely just regurgitating Wikipedia facts and does not work in real development. USD has been open sourced since 2016 and integrated into many things (like IOS preferred 3D format. The z in theirs stands for zipped)
I'm actually not. I've done both actual experimentation and proper research ont he subject. Yes USD has been around since 2016, but with major tech companies having formed AOUSD a lot is going to change for the better, soon!
USD ams to fix the issue of too many formats by introducing yet another format. I'm sorry but no. Looks good on paper, but the idea seems more hype than out of the box thinking. Blender is a open format with a flexible database based design. Why hasn't it fixed the interpolarity issue then?
I get your point, but I think it's not true that a new format might not do the job. USD wasn't intended to fix everything. It was intended to make Pixar's life easier. But since they released it as open-source the community started implementing it into their pipelines. This lead to the formation of AOUSD and with major tech companies founding that their goal is to have USD be the 1 format for most stuff 3D. And that's something I think could very well be done and inspires me!
Cool video etc but looks like you filmed yourself talking at the wrong framerate, feels like shot at 24 and smacked into a 30 timeline and then i guess you exported at 60 so youtube can claim 60
Yes! But recently the AOUSD has been founded and it's a combined effort to really start implementing and growing USD as an open-source tech for the future!
With Autodesk saying it's getting rid of its FBX team, I'd say it's not a bad idea to start using USD in production as a file format. USD is way more than that, but getting your team to use USD as a transfer protocol will get them familiar with the tech for when composition systems are more fleshed out.
yup' it's already good enough in my opinion, but i'm more excited to see how it evolves and how many more indie and solo creators will start using it.@@michaeleaster8354
So what youre saying is, with the usd format. iit keeps all my data like materials and so on? I can just import that file into my game engine and it retain all data ? i dont have to bake my textures anymore, etc? Or am i missing something
Well you'll still need to bake, but as in my example baking is sort of automatic in Substance. If you're using basic materials from Blender for example, they will automatically transfer through USD. It's still in development but at some point everything should work almost automatically in every software!
Good cuz i just leanred about baking textures . So id be upset if this came along and made all that time a waste. Eventually it will tho which is cool. toook me a solid 2 dyas to figure it out after watching tutorials and such @@KaizenTutorials
Time to make a video to create a new trend 'I changed RU-vid Titles Forever!'. No but I get what you mean, it's just the way we have to play the game these days.
There isn't, but if there were it would be almost identical. My sponsors never color my content. NVIDIA sponsored this video, but it's just a fact that they play a major role in USD and it's development! Currently probably even the biggest (upfront atleast, not behind the scenes). So again; without the sponsor the video would've been the same.
I disagree. All the softwares creating something that truly fits their tool is the reason we have so many different formats imo. Things like USD, ORA and Gltf try to circumvent the problems created by this.
There are Omniverse plugins for both game engines. Unity is unidirectional in beta. However more importantly if you don't have an infinite money glitch to afford OV for your team, both engines have native import as of the latest Unity 2023 update. Unreal has better native support with Unity struggling behind (probably because they keep firing everyone) although at Siggraph 23 Unreal admitted their support was early but not updated. They intend to make USD a priority this year.
@@michaeleaster8354 Thanks for the additional info. Still it stands that Unreal indeed has a USD importer and in time hopefully every dcc application will integrate a proper usd workflow. As of now sadly the workflow is not that great for every part of 3d production :(
2:08 universal scene description, USD for interoperability between software for non-destructive file exchange. Compatibility is enhanced by using a USD composer editor. 13:36 AOUSD opensource governance (Adobe, Apple, etc)
even as an animator I think I'm def going to start using usd for a future personal project that I've been developing. But I'm curious , do you know if rigs are able to get transfered with usds (from maya to blender) or is it best to do that still in just one software ? (with the whole skinning weight stuff)
I haven’t tried myself but I know it handles animation well and plays back cached animation really well too. Rigs work, but afaik the filesize still increases a lot from it. Some people say gltf is better for rigs, but I expect that to change with AOUSD taking the lead on development now!
USD is 8 years old. AOUSD is not and is the reason for this video. Major tech companies investing in USD and it becoming a non-profit organization and open-source is going to propel this forward tremendously!
AOUSD got founded in August 2023! USD has been around for a while but the new real big change, major tech companies backing this and putting their effort in creating this thing is pretty new!
