Universal Scene Description (USD) is an open source framework developed by Pixar Animation Studios for the interchange of 3D graphics data across various digital content creation tools. USD provides a rich and powerful toolset for reading, writing, editing, and rapidly previewing 3D scene data. With many of its features geared towards performance and large-scale collaboration among many artists, USD is ideal for the complexities of the modern pipeline. One such feature is Hydra, a high-performance preview renderer capable of interactively displaying large data sets. USD supports a variety of file formats, including usda, usdc, and usdz (a zero-compression, unencrypted zip archive), facilitating flexibility in data representation and exchange. The framework also includes tools like usdedit, a script that converts any single USD-readable file into its .usda text equivalent for easy editing.
Features
- USD is a high-performance extensible software platform
- USD enables robust interchange between digital content creation tools
- USD’s unique composition ability provides rich and varied ways to combine assets into larger assemblies
- Designed to meet the needs of large-scale film and visual effects production
- Geometry, shading, lighting, and physics
- Enables collaborative workflows so that many creators can work together with ease, and more
Project Samples
