“USD in Production” by Porcino, Bloom, Zhuang, Emilio Selva, Pitts, et al. …
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- USD in Production
Organizer(s):
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Interest Area:
- Production & Animation
Abstract:
Building on the content from the previous year’s course, the path of adoption is again the focus of the class. This iteration aims to guide the student through more specific and advanced pillars of USD by highlighting some increasingly complex integration scenarios. These include the trends and challenge of adopting USD, innovative solutions for USD structure as well as how DCCs like Maya are continuing to push USD integration within their architectures. Using real world examples, the instructors will present challenges faced in many integrations, some common pitfalls that arise and ultimately concepts on how instructors proposed to solve them. Throughout this course, each presenter will provide insights and detailed learning materials from different aspects of USD, based on recent production experience across different facilities. This course is not intended to present a definitive, “one-true” approach on how to use USD, but rather it seeks to provide insightful lessons for how productions are working with its current abilities and constraints, aiming at these lessons to be informative and inspiring to others putting USD into productions. By the end of the course, attendees will have acquired knowledge that will help them make informed decisions on why they would choose one approach over another when confronted with a USD challenge.
Additional Information:
- Notes and Videos from Pixar’s USD “Learn” section: https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/release/dl_downloads.html, in particular, “USD: Building Asset Pipelines”.
- SideFX’s LOPs and USD Glossary: https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/solaris/glossary.html
- Book of USD from Remedy Entertainment: https://remedy-entertainment.github.io/USDBook
- Optionally watch 2024 ’s USD in Production: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3664475.3664568
- Optionally watch 2023 ’s USD in Production: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3587423.3595531
- 0-5 min: Introduction
- 5-25 min: Foundations of USD
- 25-55 min: Asset Resolution with Evolving Shot Structures
- 55-85 min: Transition to an Explicit Dependency Asset Resolver
- 85-115 min: Asset Structure for Specific Intents
- 115-145 min: Adopting USD – Trends & Challenges
- 145-175 min: Maya-USD Workflows
- 175-180 min: Closing Q&A
Intermediate
Prerequisite: Recommended material that will ensure the audience has basics covered:
Topics: Pipeline, Production, USD
List of topics and approximate times:
Additional Info: Based on real production examples, this Universal Scene Description (USD) course will expand upon previously presented best practices for pipeline infrastructure and integration. Presenters will walk through how they are more powerfully leveraging USD, building flexible, context-driven workflows, while balancing optimizations for consumer and author performance.
