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Change Log

[21.11] - 2021-11-01

Ar 2.0 is enabled by default as of this release. Ar 1.0 is deprecated and will be removed in a subsequent release. During this transition, Ar 1.0 may still be enabled by setting PXR_USE_AR_2=OFF when running CMake.

Build

  • Added support for building against debug versions of Python. Users must specify PXR_USE_DEBUG_PYTHON=ON when running CMake. (PR: #1478)

  • Libraries now use @loader_path instead of absolute paths for RPATHs on macOS. (PR: #1478)

  • Libraries are now prefixed with "libusd_" on Linux and macOS and "usd_" on Windows to avoid name conflicts with other packages. The previous behavior can be restored by setting PXR_LIB_PREFIX="lib" on Linux and macOS or PXR_LIB_PREFIX="" on Windows when running CMake. (Issue: #1615)

  • Changes and fixes to build_usd.py:

    • Added --debug-python and --build-python-info options to enable builds against debug versions of Python and to control Python to build against. (PR: #1478)
    • Added --use-cpp11-abi option on Linux to control defininition of _GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI when building USD and dependencies. (Issue: #1609)
    • Replaced --debug option with --build-variant.
    • Updated download locations for boost, libtiff, and libpng to avoid certificate expiration issues on systems with OpenSSL older than 1.1.0.
    • Updated Blosc to v1.20.1 for compatibility with macOS Catalina (10.15).
    • Fixed issue where the OpenEXR libraries would be installed in the root of the filesystem. (PR: #1575

USD

  • Fixed deadlock in NdrRegistry::GetNodesByFamily.

  • Changes for Ar 2.0:

    • ArResolver::CreateDefaultContextForAsset now gives all registered resolvers an opportunity to provide a default context for an asset.
    • ArResolver::GetModificationTimestamp now returns an ArTimestamp object instead of a VtValue. ArTimestamp requires the use of Unix time to facilitate asset comparisons across resolvers.
    • Added default implementations for ArResolver::GetExtension and GetModificationTimestamp to simplify resolver implementations.
    • Added UsdResolverExample, an example URI resolver implementation.
    • Added more documentation.

  • Deprecated SdfLayer::GetExternalReferences and UpdateExternalReference in favor of GetCompositionAssetDependencies and UpdateCompositionAssetDependency.

  • SdfLayer no longer treats the inability to retrieve a timestamp for a layer or its external asset dependencies as an error under Ar 2.0. Calls to SdfLayer::Reload will always reload layers with invalid timestamps.

  • Updated SdfCreateVariantInLayer and SdfCreatePrimInLayer to use "prepend" when creating new variant sets. (Issue: #1552)

  • Added support for Unicode asset paths on Windows. (Issue: #1443, PR: #1580)

  • Fixed bug that caused errors when reading large .usda files.

  • Code invoked from Python that accesses invalid UsdPrim objects in C++ will now emit a Python exception instead of crashing.

  • Fixed issue where ArResolver::OpenAsset would be called multiple times when opening an ASCII .usd file or a .usdz file. (Issue: #1613)

  • Fixed bugs in gfGenCode and usdGenSchema where file objects were not closed, leading to ResourceWarnings from Python. (PR: #1557)

  • Updated usdGenSchema to mark plugInfo as a resource instead of a library when codeless schemas are being generated via skipCodeGen option.

  • Fixed bugs where changes to a layer's resolved path would not trigger recomposition of prims when needed.

  • Fixed bug that caused crashes during composition. (PR: #1568)

  • Fixed bug where UsdNotice::ObjectsChanged notice emitted after call to UsdStage::Reload would contain pointers to destroyed objects. (Issue: #1605

  • Fixed bug where UsdUtilsComplianceChecker returned a false error due to not recognizing the UsdTransform2d shader. (PR: #1625)

  • Fixed issue where UsdUtilsExtractExternalReferences would mutate the input layer unnecessarily. (Issue: #1573

  • Added UsdGeomVisibilityAPI. This schema provides attributes to control prim visibility based on the "purpose" attribute from the UsdGeomImageable schema. It will eventually be the place where primary visibility and purpose are also housed and authored.

  • Added UsdGeomImageable::ComputeEffectiveVisibility for computing purpose visibility.

  • Removed unused UsdGeomImageable::ComputeVisibility overload that took a parentVisibility parameter.

  • Fixed broken Python bindings for UsdPhysics on Windows under Python 3.8+.

  • Fixed missing Python bindings and "kilogramsPerUnit" metadata in UsdPhysics. (PR: #1606)

  • Deleted many previously deprecated UsdRi schema classes, namely, UsdRiRisBxdf, UsdRiRisIntegrator, UsdRiRisObject, UsdRiRisOslPattern, UsdRiRisPattern, UsdRiRslShader and all UsdRiLight and UsdRiLightFilters which are now part of the usdRiPxr schema domain.

  • Updated connectedAPIBehavior so that APISchemas can now provide connectableAPIBehavior by explicitly registering a new behavior associated with the APISchemaType or by providing plug metadata to configure the connectability behavior. Note that the latter can be used for codeless schemas.

  • Fixed a couple of rare bugs associated with UsdShadeConnectableAPIBehavior and UsdGeomComputeExtentFunction, resulting in robust behavior when new plugins are registered.

  • Updated UsdUtilsUpdateSchemaWithSdrNodes to include new concepts like addition of shaderId attribute to the generated schema classes, provide apiSchemaCanOnlyApplyTo, and provide ability to control UsdShadeConnectableAPIBehavior using metadata on the sdrNodes. Refer to the updated documentation for more details.

  • Updated usdgenschemafromsdr to be able to provide sdr nodes via explicit asset paths and to parse and add renderContext related information from the json config.

  • Added support for different Sdr to Sdf type mappings. Introducimg a new "sdrUsdDefinitionType" metadata field for sdrShaderProperty, which is used to distinguish between sdrDefaultValue and equivalent sdfTypeDefaultValue. Note that for backward compatibility SdrShaderProperty::GetDefaultValue currently returns the same value as SdrShaderProperty::GetSdfTypeDefaultValue, this is guarded by an environment variable "SDR_DEFAULT_VALUE_AS_SDF_DEFAULT_VALUE".

  • Single apply API schemas can now include built-in API schemas and can auto apply to other single apply API schemas. API schemas are now only allowed to inherit directly from UsdAPISchemaBase.

  • Applied API schemas can no longer inherit from other other applied API schemas, which allows UsdPrim::HasAPI() to be a much faster query. Non-applied schemas may still inherit from other non-applied schemas.

  • Added UsdLuxLightAPI, which can be applied to geometry to create a light. UsdLuxLight has been deleted. Added the applied API schemas UsdLuxMeshLightAPI and UsdLuxVolumeLightAPI, which include UsdLuxLightAPI as a builtin.

    • The core lights UsdLuxCylinderLight, UsdLuxDiskLight, UsdLuxRectLight, UsdLuxSphereLight, and UsdLuxPortalLight all inherit from from UsdLuxBoundableLightBase, are now Boundable, and have extents/bbox computations.
    • The core lights UsdLuxDomeLight and UsdLuxDistantLight now inherit from UsdLuxNonboundableLightBase and are not Boundable.
    • Deprecated UsdLuxGeometryLight
    • Deleted deprecated UsdLuxLightPortal (use UsdLuxPortalLight instead).
    • Fixed issue where UsdLux would register default SdrShaderNodes with 'USD' source types for lights defined outside of UsdLux.
    • Default SdrShaderNodes registered for UsdLux lights now include shadow and shaping API properties.

Imaging

  • First iteration of the Scene Index and Data Source system is now on by default and compatible with existing scene and render delegates via emulation. No new functionality is yet exposed as this is thus far intended to validate correctness and performance. This can be disabled by setting an HD_ENABLE_SCENE_INDEX_EMULATION environmental variable to "0".

  • Changed the return type of UsdImagingDelegate::Get() for the point instancer "rotate" attribute from GfVec4f (quaternion layout of <real, i, j, k>) to GfQuath (quaternion layout of <i, j, k, real>). This aligns with the result of SamplePrimvar(). In hdStorm, the quaternion data is now transported to the GPU as half-float data, instead of float. All custom scene delegates supplying the instancer "rotate" primvar via the Get() API must be updated for the new quaternion layout.

  • Added half-float vec2 and vec4 primvar support to hdStorm.

  • Added support to UsdImaging for new LightAPI features.

  • Added sprim-sprim dependency map to HdChangeTracker so it can track the dependencies between lights and their light filters.

  • UsdImagingMeshAdapter only keeps track of geom subsets that are using the materialBind family.

  • UsdImaging internally manages which prims to call UpdateForTime on, instead of relying on hydra to maintain that list.

  • Extended HdxTaskController to support built-in lights for backends like HdPrman.

  • When filtering primvars by material in UsdImagingGprimAdapter, added filtering using materials bound to geom subsets.

  • Improved dirty list management and performance including moving to a single dirty list managed by the render index.

  • Deleted PrimvarDescCache::Extract and GarbageCollect, and UsdImagingDelegate::PostSyncCleanup.

  • Deleted HdRenderPass::Prepare.

  • Improved UsdImagingDelegate performance when editing many instances of the same prototype. (PR: #1608)

  • Updated stb_image code to latest versions, enable UTF-8 filename support for Windows. (PR: #1580)

  • Fixed sync valid repr tokens just once for Rprims.

  • Fixed memory leak in HioOpenVDB.

  • Fixed HioOpenVDB build on windows. (PR: #1574)

  • Fixed errors when trying to read udims from .usdz files. (Issue: #1558)

  • Fixed HdResampleRawTimeSamples() parameter bug and add test coverage. (Issue: #1549)

  • Fixed crash when processing multiple native instancer edits in the same frame. (Issue: #1551)

  • Fixed GprimAdapter::_AddRprim material resolution order to be consistent with other functions. (Issue: #1626)

  • Fixed to not normalize point instancer quaternions. (Issue: #1505)

Storm

  • Added support for rendering meshes with geom subsets.

  • Added support for rendering DomeLights as a skydome. (Issue: #1385)

  • Added support to rendering BasisCurves that don't completely cover the supplied points or other primvars.

  • Added support for "constant shading" of basis curves wherein they're unaffected by lighting.

  • Added support for screen-space flat normals.

  • Improved 1st order approximations of the basic area lights (SphereLight, DiskLight, RectLight, DistantLight, and CylinderLight).

  • Moved barycentric coord generation to codeGen.

  • Consolidated edge param calculations.

  • Implemented IsValid() for HdStUdimTextureObject.

  • Sync visibility once per-Rprim sync rather than per draw item.

  • Even if there are zero lights, prims should still use the lighting integrator, specifically the one specified by their shader key.

  • Moved bindless address fetch out of HdStBufferResource.

  • Changing the type storing the volume shader glslfx source code and material params in an HdStMaterial from HdStShaderCode to struct HdStMaterial::VolumeMaterialData.

  • When a scene delegate provides a network without volume output for a material used by a volume, use the volume fallback shader.

  • Removed IsFragmentOnPoint() and IsFragmentOnEdge() shader methods.

  • Renamed HdStSurfaceShader to HdSt_MaterialNetworkShader.

  • Fixed domelights to respond to visibility changes.

  • Fixed crash when UDIM textures are missing.

  • Fixed to support all sizes of domelight textures.

  • Fixed GS smooth fvar interp for displacement

  • Fixed GL version test to include minor version. (Issues: #957 and #1001

  • Various improvements to Hgi:

    • Moved bindless texture management to HgiGL.
    • Exposed general and device specific capabilities.
    • Improved staging buffer for unified memory devices.
    • Use shaderc to compile GLSL to SPIR-V in HgiVulkan.
    • Check buffer storage mode before blit sync in HgiMetal.

RenderMan Hydra Plugin

  • Added support for UsdPreviewSurface's displacement in HdPrman.

  • Added support for UsdUvTexture's "sourceColorSpace" input and fixed normal mapping.

  • Added support for additional clip planes.

  • Added flipped flag to RtxHioImage plugin.

  • Adjusted HdPrman's fallback volume shader to match Storm's.

  • Introduced codeless usdRiPxr schema domain for RenderMan lights and lightfilters. These are generated using usdgenschemfromsdr from rman light and lightfilter args files. Note that these schemas are compatible with RenderMan 24.2.

  • Removed use of "allowPresenceWithGlass" from UsdPreviewSurfaceParameters node.

  • RtxHioImage can convert various texture formats to type float, so they can be passed to Renderman. (Issue: #1313)

  • Fixed HdPrman's fallback maxSamples to match the RenderMan fallback (64).

MaterialX

  • Updating the arguments passed into mx::loadLibraries to better accommodate relocating the MaterialX libraries folder. (Issue: #1586)

[21.08] - 2021-07-15

Ar 2.0 is feature-complete as of this release. We anticipate addressing feedback and bug reports, deprecating Ar 1.0 and enabling Ar 2.0 by default for the next release, then removing Ar 1.0 entirely in the release after that. Developers should begin migrating to Ar 2.0 now.

RenderMan 24 is now required for the RenderMan plugin as of this release. Support for RenderMan 23 was deprecated in 21.05 and has now been removed.

Build

  • Updated dependencies to align with VFX Reference Platform CY2019. In particular, USD now requires TBB 2018 or greater.
  • Added support for Python 3.8+ on Windows. The usd-core PyPI package now supports Python 3.8 and 3.9 on all platforms. (PR: #1511, #1512, #1513)
  • Fixed build errors on ARM64 on Linux. (PR: #1453)
  • Fixed various build errors due to missing or bad includes on gcc 11, clang 11, clang 13, and for Android or emscripten. (PR: #1497, #1499, #1530, Issue: #1546)
  • Fixed issue in build_usd.py with some versions of PySide2 on Windows. (PR: #1454)

USD

  • Fixed bug with symbol demangling on Windows which broke some TfType alias registrations. (PR: #1510)

  • Replaced some uses of deprecated tbb::atomic with std::atomic. (PR: #1486)

  • Numerous changes to the Work library to adhere to TBB thread limits set by host applications. (Issue: #1368):

    • WorkGetConcurrencyLimit now returns tbb::this_task_arena::max_concurrency
    • Replaced WorkArenaDispatcher and other uses of task_arena in favor of new WorkWithScopedParallelism, which uses TBB's task isolation feature.

  • Many changes for Ar 2.0:

    • Removed the majority of deprecated APIs, including AnchorRelativePath, FetchToLocalResolvedPath, ConfigureResolverForAsset, and others.
    • UsdStage::Refresh now calls ArResolver::RefreshContext to let resolvers update any internal state. Resolvers can send a ArNotice::ResolverChanged notice in that function to inform UsdStage and other listeners of any changes.
    • Added default implementations for context management and scoped caching to make it easier to implement resolvers. Note that resolvers that provide their own implementations must indicate this in the plugInfo.json file. See ArResolver documentation for more details.

  • Added UTF-8 support for reading and writing asset paths. (Issue: #1443)

  • UTF-8 sequences are now written into .usda layers without hex encoding.

  • Embedded NUL bytes are disallowed in string values in .usda layers.

  • Dynamic file formats can now be set up to use anonymous layer identifiers to avoid the need for dummy resolvable assets. (Issue: #1356)

  • Made virtual SdfFileFormat functions protected instead of private. (PR: #1519)

  • Fixed bug where a layer would be dropped from the Sdf layer registry if its identifier were changed to an existing layer's via SdfLayer::SetIdentifier.

  • Fixed SdfLayer::SetIdentifier to use same restrictions as SdfLayer::CreateNew.

  • Fixed bug where entire layer would be parsed when reading layer metadata only from .usda layers via SdfLayer::OpenAsAnonymous if no such metadata existed.

  • Fixed bug with vector usage during calls to SdfLayer::TransferContent and other methods that caused debug asserts on Windows. (Issue: #1501)

  • Fixed output of PcpPrimIndex::PrintStatistics on Windows. (PR: #1480)

  • Added support for "codeless" USD schemas that do not have any C++ or Python code. Changes to these schemas' definitions do not require any code to be recompiled; instead, the generatedSchema.usda just needs to be regenerated via usdGenSchema and reinstalled.

  • Added usdgenschemafromsdr utility to generate schemas from Sdr nodes.

  • Added ability to specify allowed prim types for API schemas in the customData dictionary for the schema in schema.usda.

  • Added UsdPrim::CanApplyAPI and CanApply to all API schema classes to check if an API schema can be applied to a prim based on the restrictions above.

  • Removed deprecated instancing "master" API from UsdStage and UsdPrim.

  • Removed support for deprecated "UsdSchemaType" terminology in schemas.

  • Fixed UsdStage::ResolveIdentifierToEditTarget to be consistent with asset path computations during composition.

  • Fixed bug where UsdResolveInfo / UsdAttributeQuery would be invalidated by an insignificant layer stack change. (Issue: #1500)

  • Improved change processing performance in UsdStage. In an internal test that authored many attributes, runtime decreased by ~50% (from ~50s to ~25s).

  • A UsdConnectableAPIBehavior can now be set to ignore shader encapsulation rules by overriding UsdConnectableAPIBehavior::RequiresEncapsulation.

  • API schemas can now provide connectability behavior, which can override behavior based on prim type.

  • Deprecated UsdShadeMaterial::ComputeSurfaceSource, ComputeVolumeSource, and ComputeDisplacementSource overloads taking a single token for renderContext.

  • Renamed SdfTypeIndicator to NdrSdfTypeIndicator.

  • Added initial version of UsdPhysics domain and schemas. For more details, see the proposal. (PR: #1424)

  • Miscellaneous documentation fixes. (PR: #1485, #1553)

Imaging

  • Added basic support for Hydra Commands, a mechanism to invoke actions that renderers know how to perform.
  • Added support for loading OpenVDB grids via ArAsset, allowing OpenVDB files to be read from within .usdz files.
  • Added support for cameras in the testing Null render delegate.
  • Added new rendertask param to disable clipping.
  • Added UsdImagingGLEngine::SetPresentationOutput to explicitly set the framebuffer that AOVs are presented into.
  • Fixed buffer allocation in vboSimpleMemory Manager.
  • Fixed issue in UsdImaging that would occur when a CoordSys is bound to an Xform prim with a renderable descendants.
  • Fixed resync of shaders in UsdImaging to also resync geometry bound to the shader's material. (Issue: #1487)
  • Fixed handling of edits to "purpose" in the native instance adapter in UsdImaging. (Issue: #1515)
  • Fixed unwanted export of stbImage symbols from Hio. (PR: #1498)
  • Allow point instancer prototypes from overs in UsdImaging. (PR: #1436)
  • Removed HdxMaterialTagTokens in favor of HdStMaterialTagTokens.

usdview

  • usdview and usdrecord now share the argument parsing facility for renderers.
  • Fixed issue where usdview would sometimes open in the background on Windows. (PR: #1537)
  • Fixed to not error or warn in Rollover Prim Info if assetInfo has no identifier entry. (PR: #1476)
  • Fixed Qt window being displayed in usdrecord. (Issue: #1521)

Storm

  • Added support for correct refinement of varying and face-varying primvars.

  • Added support for compute program preprocessor defines.

  • Added size validation for uniform primvars of basis curves.

  • Improved performance of volume ray marching shader.

  • Improved wireframe on surface display for adaptive tessellation.

  • Improved wireframe on surface display for uniform refinement.

  • Improved edge picking performance.

  • Improved performance and appearance of patch edge drawing.

  • Improved GPU memory usage by using a non-aggregated allocation for GPU stencil table buffers.

  • Moved mesh edge handling out of the geometry shader.

  • Changed default material tag in HdxTaskController to enable alpha-to-coverage.

  • Changed behavior, when a dome light texture is invalid, issue a coding error and print the file path for debugging.

  • Changed behavior, updated selection on tracker during Prepare instead of Sync.

  • Use the new texture system to bind the texture in the render pass shader.

  • Removed redundant ptexId field from patchParam.

  • Removed HdStExtCompGpuComputationBufferSource.

  • Removed remaining GS edge id shader code.

  • Removed HdStMixinShader since its usage was very limited.

  • Fixed multiple issues related to OSD drawing.

  • Fixed Ptex layout texture sampler type.

  • Fixed TCS/TES processing of primvar and drawingCoord.

  • Fixed incorrect handling of left-handed meshes. (Issue: #1075)

  • Fixed resolution of symlinked UDIM textures. (Issue: #1329)

  • Fixed area light approximation when transforms are animated. (Issue: #1524)

  • Various improvements to Hgi:

    • Added 1D texture array upload support in HgiMetal.
    • Added 16-bit signed integer data formats.
    • Added buffer binding support for Hgi shader codegen.
    • Added codeGen for compute shader invocation ID.
    • Added HgiShaderFunctionDesc creation path to HdStGLSLProgram.
    • Moved Storm compute functions to Hgi shader generation.
    • Removed now unnecessary restoration of framebuffer in HgiGLScopedStateHolder and HgiInteropOpenGL.
    • Converted primvar refinement to Hgi compute shaders.

RenderMan Hydra Plugin

  • Updated RenderMan version required by HdPrman to 24.
  • Unified HdPrman & HdxPrman into HdPrman.
  • Added basic support to optionally use MaterialX networks. (see below)

Alembic Plugin

  • Changed default number of threads used for reading Ogawa-backed files from 4 to 1. This may be changed with the USD_ABC_NUM_OGAWA_STREAMS env var.

MaterialX Plugin

  • Added support for reading MaterialX documents within .usdz files when Ar 2.0 is enabled.
  • Imaging support:
    • Moved the code common to both Storm and HdPrman into imaging/hdMtlx.
    • Allow the output of a nodegraph to be used multiple times. (Issue: #1489)
    • Update _GetMxNodeType to use MaterialX functions to support arbitrary node types not just UsdPreviewSurface and StandardSurface. (Issue #1538)
    • Fixed issue with incorrect paths for finding nodes. (Issue: #1488)
    • (Storm support) Added support for different primvar texture coordinate names to be passed down through the mtlx file.
    • (Storm support) Added support for textures to be used anywhere within the connected nodegraph instead of just as inputs for the material properties.
    • (Storm support) Added basic support for transparent MaterialX materials making sure the proper material tag is set.
    • (HdPrman support) Added basic support to use MaterialX networks.
    • (HdPrman support) Updated StandardSurface adapter node to pass the normal to PxrSurface for the bumpNormal.

Security

[21.05] - 2021-04-12

Build

  • Removed unnecessary check for Python executable in build_usd.py. (Issue: #1414, PR: #1464)
  • Updated build_usd.py to use MaterialX v1.38.0 and unified the MaterialX plugin and imaging build options PXR_BUILD_MATERIALX_PLUGIN and PXR_ENABLE_MATERIALX_IMAGING_SUPPORT into PXR_ENABLE_MATERIALX_SUPPORT.
  • Exposed version numbers in pxrConfig.cmake for CMake client projects.
  • Updated CHANGELOG.md to include links to pull requests and issues. (Issue: #1362)
  • Fixed linking errors by removing extern C linkage from LZ4 symbols, to avoid collisions with other libraries embedding LZ4. (Issue: #1447)
  • Updated VERSIONS.md to include Linux, Windows and MacOS versions used for testing. Note that Windows and MacOS should still be considered experimental. (PR: #1393)

USD

  • Added UsdUtils.UpdateSchemaWithSdrNode functionality for creating or updating a schema.usda from specially curated sdrShaderNode and sdrShaderProperty metadata.
  • Updated usdGenSchema to not error when generating a dynamic schema and libraryPath is not specified.
  • The default 'USD' SdrShaderNodes generated from UsdLuxLightFilter types now have the context of "lightFilter" like other light filter shader nodes.
  • Fixed bug where the registered URI resolver would not be invoked for a URI asset path if it was shorter than the longest registered URI schema.
  • The template asset path field for value clips now supports Sdf file format arguments. (PR: #1450)
  • SdfLayer::ListFields now includes "required fields" for each spec type.
  • A collection of fixes and tests for Windows path handling, especially involving symlinks. (PR: #1441, #1465, #1468, Issues: #1440)
  • Fixed usdGenSchema to honor apiName metadata for auto generated tokens.h. This results in correct doxygen documentation for the correct API names.
  • UsdUtilsStitchClips now creates a separate manifest layer instead of using the topology layer as the manifest layer. This is because the topology layer can contain attributes that actually don't have any time samples in clips. (Issue: #1344)
  • Added documentation for built-in and auto-applied API schemas.
  • Added additional plugInfo mechanism (via AutoApplyAPISchemas metadata) to define auto apply API schemas, to allow context/site specific auto application of API schemas.
  • Added FlattenTo function to UsdPrimDefinition to copy the contents of a prim definition into a prim spec on a layer.
  • Updated UsdShadeConnectableAPI::Get{Inputs,Outputs} to only return authored inputs/outputs by default. Optional onlyAuthored=false argument can be passed to explicitly include Builtins. Results in performance improvement at code sites like UsdShadeShaderDefUtils.
  • UsdLux Shadow and Shaping APIs are now connectable. All attributes on these APIs have been given the "inputs:" prefix.
  • Adding support for identifier aliases in Ndr/Sdr. This allows NdrRegistry to use these aliases to find the node through the GetNodeByIdentifierAPIs when there are no appropriate nodes that exactly match the identifier being searched for.
  • Performance improvement in terminal resolution in UsdShade. Introduced a shaderOutputOnly flag on the GetValueProducingAttributes function, this allows us to get only the type of connections we want and avoid the cost of the extra checks.
  • Updated NdrRegistry::GetNodeFromAsset() to use asset name and extension as the node name instead of the identifier. Note that node name is not expected to be unique for a NdrNode.
  • Fixed a pcp change processing bug where we did not consider layers with replaced content significant wrt layer stacks that use the layer. (Issue: #1407)
  • Removed UsdShadeConnectableAPI implicit constructors from UsdShadeShader and UsdShadeNodeGraph to enforce independence of connectability concept from shader graphs. Callers are required to convert these explicitly now, which can be done via the ConnectableAPI() method on Shader and NodeGraph.
  • Updated connectability rules in UsdShadeConnectableAPIBehavior to improve encapsulation. Refer to the UsdShade documentation for details on connectability rules.
  • usdGenSchema now adds a type alias for abstract typed schemas, which means abstract typed schemas now have an official USD type name which is registered with the UsdSchemaRegistry.
  • Auto apply API schemas in USD can now specify abstract typed schemas to auto apply to, indicating that the API should be applied to all schemas that derive from the abstract schema type.
  • Removed deprecated UsdConnectableAPI::IsShader() and IsNodeGraph() APIs.
  • Fixed performance regression in UsdStage change processing when applying an API schema.
  • Make OSL parser for Sdr more robust to dynamic array type names.
  • Backwards compatibility for the deprecated "UsdSchemaType" terminology will be removed in the next release. Schemas that have not been updated since v21.02 must be regenerated to avoid breakage in the next release.

Imaging

  • Added SampleIndexedPrimvar() and GetIndexedPrimvar() scene delegate API to allow users to access unflattened primvars and their indices.
  • Added support for time-sampled computed primvars in the scene delegate API (including an UsdImaging implementation for Skel). (PR: #1455)
  • Added GetInstancerPrototypes() scene delegate API to return prim paths that are prototypes of an instancer.
  • Added support for GetMaterialResource() to the lightAdapter and lightFilterAdapter classes so the usdImaging scene delegate can provide HdMaterialNetworks for lights and filters.
  • Added imaging adapters for UsdLuxPluginLight and UsdLuxPluginLightFilter.
  • Added optimization when checking primvar existence, use Get() instead of ComputeFlattened().
  • Renamed render delegate API GetMaterialNetworkSelector() to GetMaterialRenderContexts() to allow for multiple material render contexts.
  • Moved version tracking of batches from HdChangeTracker to Storm’s render delegate.
  • Moved garbage collection API to Storm’s render delegate.
  • Refactored the free camera code in HdxTaskController::_Delegate into its own HdxFreeCameraSceneDelegate.
  • Removed obsolete HdTexture bprim.
  • Various improvements to Hio:
    • Refactored reading of HioImage and the conversion to an HgiFormat into common functionality.
    • Moved volume field texture loading out of Glf. Volume data is loaded via a plugin point (hioOpenVDB) in HioFieldTextureData.
    • Replaced GlfGetNumElements(HioFormat) and GlfGetElementSize(HioFormat) with equivalent functions in Hio.
    • The HioOIIO OpenImageIO plugin supports format conversion when loading image data, so we specify the target format in the destination image spec.
    • As the transition to Hio (and our new texture system) continues to move forward, we are now removing many entry points in Glf.
  • Fixed crash on Hydra update when a prototype primitive is removed (deleted or deactivated) in the same update cycle where an inheritable primvar is added or changed to an ancestor of the prototype that used to exist. (PR: #1418, Issue: #1417)
  • Fixed skip creating unsupported AOVs in the task controller. (Issue: #1215)
  • Fixed non-color AOV visualization. (Issue: #1437)
  • Fixed material binding improvements for point instancer prototypes. (Issue: #1449)
  • Fixed instance highlighting for native instances when the selected instance is invisible. (Issue: #1461)
  • Fixed PointInstancerAdapter Get() to properly call the fallback if it can't find the requested key. (Issue: #1439)

Storm

  • Added filtering of instancer primvar bindings.
  • Added shader configurations, mixins and a new material tag 'translucentToSelection' to enable occluded selection to show through.
  • Added HdRenderPassState API to enable/disable the depth test.
  • Added better support for a color mask to be specified per color attachment rather than use the same mask for all attachments.
  • Added SetPresentationOutput() API specifies the framebuffer the present task will write the AOVs into.
  • Added casts to avoid GLSL compile errors when enabling HD_ENABLE_DOUBLE_MATRIX and using the volume raymarcher.
  • Added GlfAnySharedGLContextScopeHolder that is a conditional GlfSharedGLContextScopeHolder only switching the shared context if there is no current valid context.
  • Added number of texture objects and handles to HdStResourceRegistry::GetResourceAllocation.
  • Changed Ptex layout texture format in order to improve compatibility on platforms which don't support 3-component textures.
  • Disabled bindless textures while we investigate unexpected performance regressions related to switching context and bindless.
  • Optimization to bail out early for Storm tasks that have no work.
  • Avoid invalidation in the renderpass shader when processing buffer binding requests.
  • Refactored basis curves points primvar processing such that it uses HdSt_BasisCurvesPrimvarInterpolaterComputation.
  • Fixed to trigger draw item gather when material tag changes
  • Fixed HgiBufferDesc byteSize calculations to avoid reading beyond initialized data when creating buffer objects.
  • Renamed renderPassShader.glslfx to renderPassColorShader.glslfx to clarify its intent.
  • Renamed rprimUtils to primUtils to reduce code duplication.
  • Removed unused mixin option to discard unselected fragments.
  • Removed Bind/Unbind HdRenderPassState API
  • Removed GlfHasLegacyGraphics - use GlfContextCaps instead.
  • Removed render pass state override shader.
  • Various improvements to Hgi:
    • Added support to pass an external framebuffer to HgiInterop.
    • Renamed HgiMipInfo::byteSize to HgiMipInfo::byteSizePerLayer for clarification.
    • Moved HgiShaderSection::WriteAttributeToIndex to HgiMetalShaderSection.
    • Unified how attributes are stored across GL, Metal and Vulkan.
    • Fixed resolve op to transfer data from/to all attachments.
    • Fixed a potential bug where the wrong size was computed for a compressed array texture.
    • Fixed code generation for unsigned and signed integer textures.
    • Fixed redundant depth buffer resolve and ensure that in the absence of color attachments, it still gets resolved.
    • Fixed Metal error related to resource lifetime.

RenderMan Hydra Plugin

  • Updated RenderMan version required by hdPrman to 23.5.
  • NOTE: The USD release following the RenderMan 24 release will increase the required version once more to 24.0. In other words, this will likely be the last USD release with hdPrman support for RenderMan 23.x.
  • Made the rman args parser map bxdf types inputs to the Sdr terminal type.
  • Finishing work to support fieldDataType and vectorDataRoleHint for UsdVol prims in hdPrman.

MaterialX Support

  • Minimum of MaterialX v1.38 is now required.
  • MaterialX support in Storm:
    • Added basic support for textures.
    • Added basic support for direct lights.
    • Added a Mtlx render context, which gets consumed by Storm’s render delegate.
    • Register MaterialX nodes as having "mtlx" source type and allow Storm’s material network to accept both glslfx and mtlx sourcetypes.
    • Changed the MaterialX option from FIS to Specular Environment Prefilter.
    • Fixed u_envMatrix calculation to account for y-up/z-up/domelight transform.
  • Various improvements to the usdMtlx plugin:
    • Record "geomprop" references from materialx into Sdr's "primvars" metadata. This lets clients query which primvars the material wants access to (for purposes such as primvar filtering).
    • No longer copying default values on shader inputs to each USD shader definition to improve performance and keep it more consistent with other UsdShade constructs.
    • Removed deprecated references to shaderref, Color2.
    • Fixed a crash in UsdMtlx when reading mtlx nodes that use a MaterialX standard shader nodedef.

usdview

  • Fixed a bug where we weren't updating for changes that affect the entire stage. (Issue: #1407)
  • Improved testusdview error reporting (PR: #1416)

[21.02] - 2021-01-18

Build

  • Added build and packaging scripts for PyPI packages. Thanks to Nvidia for their work on this project!

  • Updated documentation build to fix several issues and no longer require Python. (Issue: #718)

  • GLEW is no longer required for building imaging components.

  • Various fixes and changes to build_usd.py:

    • Fixed command-line args not being respected for OpenVDB. (PR: #1406)
    • Updated boost to 1.70 on macOS for both Python 2 and 3. (Issue: #1369)
    • Updated MaterialX to 1.37.3 with shared libraries on Linux.

  • Fixed various linking issues with OpenEXR. (PR: #1398)

USD

  • Allow setting malloc hook functions if they were previously set to malloc/etc.

  • Fixed handling of symbolic links and mount points on Windows. (PR: #1378)

  • Fixed incorrect handling of non-existent variables in TfEnvSetting in Python.

  • Updated GfRect2i API to use function and argument names that are agnostic to the direction of the Y axis.

  • Updated ilmbase half embedded in Gf to OpenEXR v2.5.3. (Issue: #1354)

  • Added VtArray::AsConst, cfront, and cback methods to help avoid inadvertent copy-on-writes and thread-safety issues.

  • Fixes for variety of issues with VtArray conversions in Python, including conversion from Python sequences if all elements are convertible and a bug with inadvertent copy-on-writes. (Issue: #1138)

  • Initial implementation of Ar 2.0. This includes new features like support for URI resolvers and many changes to the ArResolver interface. For more details see https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/668045551.html.

    Work on Ar 2.0 is not yet complete and will continue through the next few releases. Ar 2.0 is disabled by default but can be enabled for preview and initial testing by specifying PXR_USE_AR_2=ON when running CMake.

  • Moved SdfFindOrOpenRelativeToLayer to SdfLayer::FindOrOpenRelativeToLayer.

  • Fixed SdfLayer::FindRelativeToLayer to use the same anchoring logic as SdfLayer::FindOrOpenRelativeToLayer.

  • Fixed string encoding issue in .usda file writer. (Issue: #1331)

  • Improved behavior when hitting hard-coded composition graph limits in Pcp.

  • Fixed incorrect native instancing behavior with sub-root references.

  • Added support for auto-apply API schemas. This allows single-apply API schemas to be automatically applied to prims using one of a list of associated concrete schema types instead of requiring the user to manually apply the API schema.

  • Renamed UsdSchemaType to UsdSchemaKind to disambiguate between the schema type (e.g. UsdGeomSphere) and kind (e.g. non-applied, single-apply, etc).

  • Deprecated functions using the "schema type" terminology in favor of "schema kind".

  • Added UsdVariantSet::BlockVariantSelection. (Issue: #1319, PR: #1340)

  • Removed deprecated UsdAttribute::BlockConnections.

  • Removed deprecated UsdRelationship::BlockTargets.

  • Removed deprecated UsdCollectionAPI::ApplyCollection.

  • Added "container" concept to UsdShadeConnectableAPI.

  • Added support for connecting multiple sources to UsdShadeConnectableAPI.

  • Deprecated API for connecting to single sources in favor of the more general multiple-source API on UsdShadeConnectableAPI.

  • Deprecated UsdConnectableAPI::IsShader and IsNodeGraph in favor of IsContainer API. Warnings are emitted on first use unless the environment setting USD_SHADE_EMIT_CONNECTABLE_API_DEPRECATION_WARNING is set to 0.

  • Updated various clients to apply the UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI schema before binding materials.

  • Fixed Python binding for UsdShade.CoordSysAPI.HasLocalBindings. (PR: #1360)

  • Fixed Python binding for UsdSkel.SkinningQuery.ComputeExtentsPadding. (Issue: #1375)

  • Added UsdLuxPluginLight and UsdLuxPluginLightFilter schemas that allow for defining a light or light filter via an SdrShaderNode.

  • UsdLuxLight and UsdLuxLightFilter schemas now publish an associated SdrShaderNode based on their built-in properties.

  • Input attributes for UsdLuxLight and UsdLuxLightFilter schemas are now connectable and have been renamed to include the "inputs:" prefix.

  • Deprecated UsdLuxLightPortal schema in favor of new UsdLuxPortalLight schema.

Imaging

  • Added new GL Loading Library (GLApi) to replace GLEW. GLEW is no longer required.
  • Added HioImage, removed GlfImage.
  • Added new camera framing API. Introduces the display and data window and storage size to separate these concepts. Updated Storm, HdPrman, and HdEmbree.
  • Added support for normal buffers to HdxPickFromRenderBufferTask.
  • Added standard prim API to HdInstancer and HdSceneDelegate::GetInstancerId.
  • Added support for animated extents when using draw modes. (PR: #1365)
  • Improved Hydra camera to better support physically based attributes.
  • Extended HdDisplayStyle to house more advanced selection behaviors.
  • Changed renderParams timeCode default values from Default to EarliestValue.
  • Changed UsdImagingDelegate to map HdLightTokens to the new input attribute names in queries through GetLightParamValue.
  • Merged tokens textureResourceMemory into textureMemory for better performance tracking.
  • Renamed UsdImagingValueCache to UsdImagingPrimvarDescCache, it only stores primvar descriptors.
  • Removed implementations of deprecated HdSceneDelegate::GetTextureResource.
  • Removed HwFieldReader volume material node in favor of typed nodes.
  • Fixed bug in pick targets when resolving unique hits. (Issue: #1343)
  • Fixed UsdSkel instance drawing at origin bug. (Issue: #1347)
  • Fixed UsdImaging to discard coord sys bindings to non-existent xforms. (Issue: #1346)
  • Fixed UsdSkelImagingSkeletonAdapter to forward GetMaterialId and GetDoubleSided calls to skinned mesh primadapter. (Issue: #1384)
  • Fixed an issue where UsdSkelImagingSkeletonAdapter::_RemovePrim() failed to remove skeletons that did not have any bindings to skinned prims. (Issue: #1228, Issue: #1248)
  • Fixed some display crashes after resyncing skeletons. (PR: #1397)
  • Fixed dome light preview surface. (PR: #1392)
  • Fixed links to OpenEXR for Alembic and OpenImageIO plugins. (PR: #1398)

Storm

  • Added support for varying interpolation of any basis curves primvar. (Issue: #1308)
  • Added support for HdStResourceRegistry::ReloadResource to allow clients to explicitly force textures to be reloaded by file path. (Issue: #1352)
  • Added a new HdMaterialNetwork2 to combine (and then replace) HdStMaterialNetwork and MatFiltNetwork.
  • Added step to convert 3 channel textures to 4 channel to support Hgi backends with 4 channel requirements.
  • Added Resize() to barContainer.
  • Added fieldTextureMemory render setting to specify the target memory of volume textures.
  • Added experimental MaterialXFilter to process a material network and convert it into a MaterialX network. Also, added a first pass on a MaterialX shadergen.
  • Enabled bindless textures by default.
  • Several improvements to volume rendering including a step size relative to the sample distance so that the quality of the rendered volume does not depend on the scale.
  • Optimized HdStRenderBuffer performance by only allocating when the descriptor changes.
  • Optimized computations by avoiding copying the compute kernel for GPU computations.
  • Refactored face culling to remove fragment shader discards when possible.
  • Refactored geometric shaders such that only prims with the "masked" material tag can use alpha threshold based discards.
  • Switched Storm over to using the "translucent" material tag rather than "additive" as the default translucency state.
  • Fixed handling of valid to invalid BAR transitions due to Scene graph operations on primvars or primvar filtering. (Issue: #1182)
  • Fixed GPU memory leak of certain buffers never getting garbage collected.
  • Fixed fullscreen pass to preserve alpha.
  • Removed instance primvar filtering.
  • Various improvements to Hgi :
    • Added initial version of the Hgi codegen to be able to produce GLSL/MetalSL/others from glslfx.
    • Added the first push of our experimental, incomplete, HgiVulkan backend, which does not yet build by default.
    • Added memory barriers to Hgi.
    • Added CopyTextureToBuffer and CopyBufferToTexture to HgiBlitCmds.
    • Added 2D_ARRAY support to Hgi.
    • Moved Ptex and Udim loading from Glf to Hgi and Storm.
    • Added UINT16 format as prep work for Ptex support.
    • Fixed obj-c autorelease issue, and simplification of secondary command buffer in HgiMetal compute encoder.
    • Fixed HgiTexture::GetByteSizeOfResource to take the mip levels into account.
    • Fixed for missing include. (PR: #1359)

usdview

  • Fixed StageView.pickObject when doubles are small or out of image-bounds. (PR: #1296)

MaterialX Plugin

  • Removed deprecated support for MaterialX 1.36.

Embree Hydra Plugin

  • Added support for new camera framing API and HdCamera API.

RenderMan Hydra Plugin

  • Bumped version requirement to RenderMan 23.5 or greater.
  • Improved calculation of vertex, varying, and face-varying primvar counts in BasisCurves to better match RenderMan.
  • Added support for new camera framing API and HdCamera API.
  • Added support for material node int array inputs. (Issue: #1294)
  • Fixed issue that caused parameters from a shader to be incorrectly carried over to the next shader that was parsed. (Issue: #1396)

[20.11] - 2020-10-14

Build

  • Updated CMakeLists.txt to conform to recommended practice. (Issue: #1241)

  • The build system now sets Boost_NO_BOOST_CMAKE=ON by default to work around issues with boost's cmake files. (Issue: #1255)

  • Various fixes and changes to build_usd.py:

    • Added --toolset option for specifying CMake toolset. (PR: #1325)
    • Added --prefer-safety-over-speed and --prefer-speed-over-safety options. See below for more details.
    • Fixed issue with building libTIFF with Xcode 12. (PR: #1315)

USD

  • Fixed incorrect underlying container type for TfHashMultiMap. (PR: #1281)

  • Fixed invalid conversions of Gf containers like GfVec3f in Python. Note this issue is still present in Python 3. (Issue: #1290)

  • Fixed various tests to accommodate PXR_OVERRIDE_PLUGINPATH_NAME. (PR: #1275)

  • Added GetExternalAssetDependencies to SdfLayer and SdfFileFormat to allow file format plugins to declare additional dependencies that determine when a layer produced from that file format should be reloaded.

  • Reduced memory usage from SdfPath::GetString and added SdfPath::GetAsString and SdfPath::GetAsToken to avoid populating internal caches. (Issue: #1287)

  • Various fixes to composition behavior:

    • Fixed issues with sub-root references, payloads, and inherits, and ancestral variant selections.
    • Fixed issue with payloads on ancestors of sub-root references/payloads.
    • Fixed issue with combinations of root, sub-root, and ancestral inherits.

  • Fixed bug in .usda file writer that could cause data corruption. (Issue: #1331)

  • Fixed performance issue when writing many relationship targets or attribute connections to .usdc files. (Issue: #1345)

  • Improved performance for certain queries with .usdc files. In one example, this decreased draw times in usdview after transform changes by ~90%. (Issue: #1300)

  • New .usdc files now default to version 0.8.0. These files cannot be read in USD releases prior to v19.03. Users can revert to writing older versions by setting the environment variable USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION to an older version.

  • Added safety checks to guard against reading malformed .usdc files. These checks may negatively impact performance and may be disabled by specifying PXR_PREFER_SAFETY_OVER_SPEED=OFF when running CMake or --prefer-speed-over-safety with build_usd.py.

  • Native instancing "master" prims are now referred to as "prototype" prims. The generated paths of prototype prims has been changed from /_Master to /_Prototype. Clients can use new UsdPrim::IsPrototypePath and UsdPrim::IsPathInPrototype API to determine if a given path is related to a prototype.

    UsdStage and UsdPrim API using "master" terminology like UsdPrim::GetMaster and UsdStage::GetMasters have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

  • Added Get/Set/ClearChildrenReorder to UsdPrim for reordering prim children.

  • UsdProperty::FlattenTo now allows flattening properties across stages.

  • Deprecated UsdRelationship::BlockTargets and UsdAttribute::BlockConnections. Clients should use SetTargets({}) and SetConnections({}) instead.

  • Changed UsdRelationship::GetTargets and UsdAttribute::GetConnections to return false when HasAuthored would return false.

  • Fixed bug where UsdFlattenLayerStack was not applying the asset path resolution callback to asset paths in clips metadata. (PR: #1266)

  • Added UsdNotice::LayerMutingChanged notice. (Issue: #676)

  • Fixed resource leak with Usd.PrimCompositionQuery in Python. (PR: #1297)

  • Fixed crashes when printing expired Sdf.Layer and Usd.Stage objects in Python. (PR: #1012)

  • Removed isPrivateApply functionality from schema generation.

  • Fixed error in UsdUtilsComputeAllDependencies when an invalid templateAssetPath value is specified. (PR: #1289)

  • Improved UsdUtilsGetPrimaryUVSetName and UsdUtilsGetPrefName. (PR: #1283)

  • Fixed bug in UsdUtilsStitchClips that led to inconsistent stitched results.

  • Added CanContainPropertyName to UsdCollectionAPI, UsdGeomPrimvars, UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI, and UsdShadeCoordSysAPI for checking if a property name is valid for these schemas.

  • Deprecated UsdCollectionAPI::ApplyCollection in favor of Apply.

  • Added fallback values for texture card attributes on UsdGeomModelAPI schema.

  • Added exposure control to UsdGeomCamera.

  • Added ease-of-use API to UsdGeom primitives for querying the size of primary geometric properties (e.g. UsdGeomMesh::GetFaceCount).

  • Fixed plugin extent computations for primitives in UsdGeom to respect given timecode parameter. (PR: #1284)

  • Fixed crash in UsdGeomSubset::GetUnassignedIndices when a given subset had negative indices. (Issue: #1227)

  • Added UsdShadeNodeDefAPI schema to represent connectable nodes in a graph. UsdShadeShader has been modified to build off of this schema.

  • Added UsdShadeConnectableAPIBehavior to allow plugins to customize connectability by prim type.

  • Added API to retrieve material outputs for standard terminals in all render contexts on UsdShadeMaterial.

  • Added more instancing support to UsdSkel. (PR: #1258)

  • Updated UsdVol FieldAsset schemas.

  • Various documentation fixes. (Issue: #1162, PR: #1335)

Imaging

  • Added new "sourceColorSpace" input to UsdUVTexture with values "raw", "sRGB", and "auto" for better control of with which color space a texture is read.

  • Added ability to use mip maps authored in a file in the new texture system in Storm.

  • Added UsdImagingPrimAdapter::ShouldIgnoreNativeInstanceSubtrees() to allow adapters to disable instancing of itself and its descendants.

  • Added pre-multiply alpha functionality for UDIM textures. Also added sRGB internal formats for UDIMs.

  • Added checks in HioGlslfxConfig to make sure the default value for an attribute and its type match.

  • Added HdEngine::ClearTaskContextData() to avoid the task context to hold on to resources that are about to become invalid as the render delegate is destroyed.

  • Added HDST_DUMP_FAILING_SHADER_SOURCEFILE debug flag to facilitate shader debugging.

  • Added texture filepath resolution for symlinks.

  • Added an "outHitNormal" parameter to UsdImagingGLEngine::TestIntersection().

  • Added ReloadResource in Storm which reloads shader files when they change.

  • Improvements to Hgi:

    • Added Draw, DrawIndirect and DrawIndexedIndirect to Hgi and backends.
    • Added tracking of HgiCmds submission to ensure they only get submitted once.
    • Added TextureCpuToGpu copy on BlitCmd, and CopyBufferGpuToCpu to read back the GPU frustum cull results.
    • Added guarantees that HgiGLInterop will restore GL state after interop.
    • Added guarantees that Hgi GPU-GPU sync between SubmitCmds calls.
    • Added TextureView to Hgi and convert domelight to use Hgi compute and texture views.
    • Added staging buffer in Hgi to reduce the amount of times small amounts of data are copied into the same GPU buffer.
    • Added HgiPrimitiveType, and added HgiSampleCount on HgiPipelineDesc.
    • Added support for BC texture compression.
    • Added component mapping to HgiTextureDesc and implementations for GL and Metal.
    • Added ability to share HgiCmds objects in Storm.
    • Added optional wait behavior for command submission in Hgi.

  • Changed GLenum usage in GlfBaseTextureData and others to use new HioFormat.

  • Changed Storm's frustum culling to be done via a vertex shader without a fragment shader.

  • Changed HdxShadowTask to specify that it should only render opaque and masked materials.

  • Changed cards UVs from face-varying to vertex interpolated.

  • Changed to GL_SAMPLE_ALPHA_TO_ONE when using alpha to coverage, the alpha computed after the framebuffer resolve is more meaningful.

  • Changed texture cards to require prims with UsdGeomModelAPI schema applied.

  • Changed type of UsdPrimvarReader.varname input from token to string.

  • Renamed various HdStGL classes to just HdSt, this is part of the transition of Storm to support multiple rendering APIs.

  • Enabled bindless shadow maps by default in Storm.

  • On first material sync in Storm, now we try to batch prims with identical textures together.

  • HdStDrawTarget's preferred mechanism are AOVs not GlfDrawTarget's. This change allows us to remove all GlfDrawTarget support from HdStDrawTarget.

  • Since HdStDrawTarget's no longer rely on the resolve task, removing code to communicate the draw target task render passes to the resolve task.

  • Deprecated HdSceneDelegate::GetTextureResource and will eventually be removed.

  • An application can now disable the PresentTask in hdx task controller.

  • When imaging basis curves, treat empty normals array the same as missing normals (i.e. draw as tube and not ribbon at higher complexities).

  • Store HgiResourceBindings and HgiPipeline objects on HdSt resource registry.

  • Switched (most of) the GPU frustum culling code from raw GL to Hgi.

  • With the addition of HgiMetal, all platforms we currently support (for Storm) support color correction and 16F targets.

  • Use BufferResource for GPU frustum cull result buffer so we can use the regular buffer binding APIs.

  • Load mipmap data in HgiMetal textures.

  • Changed signature of HgiDataSizeOfFormat so that it can return blockWidth and blockHeight. Returning block size in bytes for compressed formats.

  • Describe shader constants (push constants) in pipeline.

  • Using HgiCompute in smooth normals computation, switched flat normals and quadrangulate to HgiCompute, and converted HdStExtCompGpuComputation to Hgi.

  • Removed UsdImaging value cache API for all data except primvar descriptors and instance indices.

  • Removed unused hitMode field from HdxPickTaskContextParams.

  • Removed UsdImagingGLEngine::InvalidateBuffers().

  • Removed pre-multiply alpha behavior from volume.glslfx and changed renderPass.glslfx to allow fully transparent but still emissive volumes.

  • Removed pre-multiply alpha behavior from stb_image and make it optional via SubtextureIdentifier within the HdSt texture system.

  • Removed support of old-style draw targets using GlfDrawTarget instead of AOVs and render buffers.

  • Removed UsdUvTexture's rgba output, and updated the cards draw mode to now use "rgb" and "a" outputs rather than rgba.

  • Removed ReloadAllShaders from HdEngine.

  • Removed HD_DRAWITEM_DRAWN as it uses raw gl calls that map/unmap a buffer.

  • Removed HgiPipelineType. We split HgiPipeline into HgiComputePipeline and HgiGraphicsPipeline a little bit ago.

  • Removed resource bindings handle from pipeline.

  • Removed smooth normals CPU fallback path. Since previous releases required OpenGL 4.5 for Hgi to work, OpenGL compute must always be available.

  • Removed HdBinding::TBO.

  • Removed the implicit barriers from Hgi and let the external client manage synchronization via SubmitCmds.

  • Fixed potential dead-lock caused by parallel loading plugins.

  • Fixed lights to be turned off when invisible in UsdImaging.

  • Fixed issue with UsdImagingGLEngine::TestIntersection such that it now correctly populates. Callers of this function are reminded to provide the "frame" field in UsdImagingGLRenderParams for correct and performant results.

  • Fixed handling of computed primvar sources for meshes.

  • Fixed normals after complexity change.

  • Fixed HgiGL garbage collector leak when Hgi is recreated during process.

  • Fixed HgiGL to better protect against long labels when using glObjectLabel.

  • Fixed render settings behaviors so we test whether or not we're really changing anything before incrementing the settings version.

  • Fixed for cycle detection in material network processing.

  • Fixed Glf lighting resource binding.

  • Fixed USD edit dependency tracking for cards prims.

  • Updated UsdPreviewSurface clearcoat calculations to better match expected inputs for a specular lobe in Storm, and added clearcoat component to indirect lighting calculation in Storm. (Issue: #1307)

  • Added support for UsdPreviewSurface's opacityThreshold parameter in Storm. (Issue: #990)

  • Added support for normal mapping for UsdPreviewSurfaces in Storm. (Issue: #701)

  • Metallic materials should have an F0 equal to their base color in UsdPreviewSurface in Storm. (Issue: #1174)

  • Removed pre-multiplication behavior from OIT resolve shader. The preview surface (and other shaders) pre-multiply within the fragment shader (unless the "diffuseColor" and "opacity" params are connected to the same texture). (Issue: #1269)

  • Added support for UDIM texture scale and bias in Storm. (Issue: #1129)

  • Converted render index to usdImaging cachePath before calling the adapter InvokeComputation method. (Issue: #1333)

  • Fix draw mode adapter handling of transforms for instanced card prims. (Issue: #1251)

  • _IsVarying no longer clears dirty bit and now ProcessPropertyChange is filled out to provide more efficiency. (Issue: #1250)

usdview

  • Added 'Enable Scene Lights' option.
  • Changed UI to use bundled Roboto and Roboto Mono fonts.
  • Fixed build issues due to stricter checks in PySide2 5.15.1. (PR: #1320)

Alembic Plugin

  • Alembic uv's are now converted to texCoord2f[] primvars:st. This can be disabled by setting the USD_ABC_WRITE_UV_AS_ST_TEXCOORD2FARRAY environment variable to 0.

RenderMan Plugin

  • Fixed infinite loop in material processing.
  • Initial implementation of exposure.
  • Volumes can react to changes to a field prim.
  • Fixed UsdUVTexture wrap mode support.
  • Add support for UsdPreviewSurface's opacityThreshold param in HdPrman. (Issue: #990)
  • Updated UsdPreviewSurface clearcoat calculations to better match expected inputs for a specular lobe in HdPrman. (Issue: #1307)
  • Metallic materials should have an F0 equal to their base color in UsdPreviewSurface in HdPrman. (Issue: #1174)

Security

[20.08] - 2020-07-21

Build

  • The "master" branch on GitHub has been renamed "release".

  • Improved error handling when building the RenderMan plugin. (Issue: #1054)

  • Various fixes and changes to build_usd.py:

    • Added --tools and --no-tools options.
    • Updated OpenImageIO (2.1.16.0) and MaterialX (1.37.1) dependencies.
    • Specifying --embree will now build the Embree library. The --embree-location parameter has been removed.
    • CMake 3.14 is now required on Windows to support boost 1.70+.
    • Python 3.8 on Windows now causes an error, as USD does not support this version on Windows.
    • Improved handling of boost build failures.
    • Fixed locale decoding errors. (Issue: #1165)
    • Fixed incorrect detection of Draco library. (PR: #1239)

USD

  • Added support for "future division" in Python 2 to aid transition to Python 3.

  • Added ArResolver::CreatePathForLayer to allow users to customize behavior when writing a layer. SdfLayer now uses this method instead of creating a directory, which was not appropriate for non-filesystem uses. (Issue: #1148)

  • Added SdfReference::IsInternal. (PR: #1204)

  • Added fallback prim types feature, allowing clients to specify alternative schemas to use if a schema can't be found. See documentation for more details.

  • Added UsdPrim::ApplyAPI, RemoveAPI, AddAppliedSchemas, and RemoveAppliedSchemas. (Issue: #1218)

  • Added Python repr for generated schemas.

  • Added methods to UsdGeomPrimvar for processing property names.

  • Added methods to UsdGeomPrimvarsAPI for creating, removing, and blocking primvars. (Issue: #1100)

  • Improved documentation for UsdVol schema domain. (PR: #1203)

  • Improved documentation for UsdGeomMesh. (PR: #1254)

  • Improved diagnostic messages for plugin registration and loading.

  • Plugin search paths in PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME can now be a symlink. Paths are now processed in order to ensure plugins in earlier entries take priority over those in later entries.

  • Replaced SdrShaderNode::GetSourceURI and GetResolvedSourceURI with GetResolvedDefinitionURI and GetResolvedImplementationURI to properly represent RenderMan C++ shaders.

  • Time sample times from layers whose timeCodesPerSecond value differ from the UsdStage are now automatically scaled to match. This can be disabled by setting the PCP_DISABLE_TIME_SCALING_BY_LAYER_TCPS environment variable, but we expect to remove this in a future release.

  • Significant changes and additions to value clips functionality. See documentation for more details:

    • Added support for jump discontinuities in clip times metadata to encode looping behaviors.
    • The clip manifest is now used to determine which attributes have values in clips. The manifest will be generated in-memory at runtime if one hasn't been specified.
    • Value resolution will no longer fall through to weaker layers if a clip does not have values for an attribute declared in the manifest. In these cases, the value may come from the default value authored in the manifest or (optionally) be interpolated from surrounding clips.
    • Removed support for legacy value clips metadata.
    • Fixed numerous bugs, including incorrect time samples when reversing clips. (Issue: #1116)

  • Changed the strength ordering of entries in the apiSchemas metadata to be strongest-to-weakest, matching the ordering of references and other fields.

  • Constructing a UsdGeom::XformOp with an invalid attribute is no longer a coding error for consistency with other schemas and objects.

  • Deprecated many schemas in UsdRi in preparation for modernization efforts in a future release.

  • Removed support for deprecated "hermite" and "power" basis from UsdGeomCurves.

  • Fixed crash when removing many entries from an SdfPathTable. (PR: #1172)

  • Fixed compile error due to missing virtual destructor for PcpDynamicFileFormatInterface. (PR: #1156)

  • Fixed type conversions when setting metadata values using dictionaries in Python. (Issue: #813)

  • Fixed handling of stage metadata and session layer muting in UsdStage.

  • Fixed UsdFlattenLayerStack to handle mismatched attribute types and time-sampled asset paths. (PR: #1169)

  • Fixed undefined behavior issue with iterator comparisons. (Issue: #1146)

  • Fixed regression in handling of inherited bindings in UsdSkelCache.

  • Fixed crash in UsdSkelBakeSkinning. (PR: #1213)

Imaging

  • Updated minimum required version of OpenGL to v4.5.

  • Added new texture system to Storm. This enables multi-threaded texture loading, uses Hgi, and frees the scene delegate from having to load textures. In a performance test using Nvidia's Attic scene, time to first image dropped by ~90%, from 115s to 10s.

  • Added first iteration of HgiMetal, a Metal-based Hgi implementation for Apple platforms. Currently, Hgi is used in several Hydra tasks to perform tasks like blitting, the goal is to slowly integrate Hgi in Storm.

  • Numerous updates to Hgi:

    • Added HgiInterop to exchange rendered results between GL-GL or Metal-GL.
    • Added HgiSampler to represent texture samplers.
    • Added HgiComputeCmds to issue compute commands.
    • Added HgiBlitCmds for mipmap generation and GPU-GPU copy.
    • Added SRGB format and removed unsupported 24-bit formats.
    • Added GetRawResource function to various resource objects to expose low-level resource handles.

  • Added garbage collection to HgiGL for proper handling of resource destruction.

  • Added HdRendererPluginHandle, an RAII object for managing plugin lifetimes.

  • Added HdxAovInputTask which takes HdRenderBuffer and (if needed) uploads it to the GPU as HgiTexture.

  • Added support for down-sampling volumes in Storm.

  • Improved performance of volumes in Storm by not re-creating the entire volume shader when fields are animated.

  • Added support for UsdTransform2d node in Storm. (Issue: #1207)

  • Added support for UsdUVTexture scale and bias in Storm. (Issue: #1129)

  • Added USDIMAGINGGL_ENGINE_DEBUG_SCENE_DELEGATE_ID environment variable to specify scene delegate ID for debugging. (Issue: #1093)

  • Changed default version of HdSceneDelegate::GetScenePrimPath to strip delegate ID.

  • Replaced obsolete GL_GENERATE_MIPMAP with glGenerateMipmap. (Issue: #1171)

  • Added support for uint16 type for GL textures and OpenImageIO. (PR: #1212)

  • Restructured OpenImageIO support as a plugin to Glf. (PR: #1214)

  • Converted common Hydra tasks (e.g. HdxColorCorrectionTask, HdxPresentTask, HdxColorizeSelectionTask) to use Hgi.

  • Renamed HdxProgressiveTask to HdxTask.

  • Storm now uses Hgi for buffers, shaders, and programs instead of OpenGL.

  • HdStResourceRegistry is instantiated once per Hgi instance in Storm.

  • Unshared computation BAR are reused when possible. (Issue: #1083)

  • Improved handling of invalid cases in several areas. (PR: #1232, PR: #1201)

  • Improved performance of UsdImagingDelegate::SetTime. (Issue: #1166)

  • Improved performance for displaying meshes with large numbers of geometry subsets. (PR: #1170)

  • Normals are ignored on skinned meshes so they are computed post-skinning.

  • Inherited UsdSkel bindings are now respected.

  • Allow HdStRenderBuffer::Resolve() to change the size of the image. (PR: #1236)

  • Removed "catmark" token in pxOsd in favor of "catmullClark".

  • Removed UsdImagingGLMaterialTextureAdapter, UsdImagingGLDomeLightAdapter, GlfVdbTexture[Container], and GlfTextureContainer, which are unneeded with the new texture system.

  • Removed unused HdxColorizeTask and HdxFullscreenShaderGL.

  • Removed HdWrapLegacyClamp, which corresponded to the deprecated GL_CLAMP.

  • Removed uses of HdStGLSLProgram as part of a new strategy to create these via HdStResourceRegistry (since it has access to Hgi).

  • Removed transform feedback from non-instanced GPU culling in Storm.

  • Fixed incorrect handling of buffer array resizing to 0 elements. (Issue: #1230)

  • Fixed memory regression when calling UsdImagingDelegate::SampleTransform and SamplePrimvar.

  • Fixed error in UsdImaging when changing from a time where a mesh provided points or normals to a time that does not.

  • Fixed potential deadlocks if plugins were loaded at various points in UsdImagingGLEngine.

  • Fixed error when processing skinned prim with no joint influences.

  • Fixed change processing issue with native instanced prims. (Issue: #1163)

  • Fixed handling of widths primvar with no value.

  • Fixed "IsFlipped" computation for native instanced prims. (Issue: #1190)

  • Fixed crash when updating a removed primvar. (PR: #1223)

  • Fixed crash when reparenting an instance root. (Issue: #1245)

  • Fixed various issues with cards prims, including a crash issue. (Issue: #1210)

  • Fixed selection encoding/decoding of invisible native instances.

  • Fixed invalidation when changing the "purpose" attribute. (Issue: #1243)

usdview

  • Added "Prototypes" pick mode that selects the prototype for a picked gprim in a PointInstancer and highlights the picked instance.
  • Reverted "Prims" and "Instances" pick modes to original behavior of selecting the root boundable of the picked object. (Issue: #1196)
  • Fixed "Reopen Stage" when usdview was launched with --norender. (PR: #1192)
  • Fixed camera guide and reticles rendering on high DPI displays.

Alembic Plugin

  • Fixed conversion of mesh subdivision interpolation options between UsdGeomMesh and AbcGeom's ISubD and OSubD schemas. (PR: #1246)

Embree Plugin

  • Removed support for Embree 2.0. The HdEmbree plugin now requires Embree 3.

MaterialX Plugin

  • Added support for MaterialX 1.37 and deprecated support for 1.36. We anticipate requiring 1.37 in a future release.
  • MaterialX "vectorN" datatypes are now translated to USD "floatN" datatypes.
  • Changed default output name from "result" to "out" to match conventions in MaterialX specification.
  • Fixed test issue found during Python 3 work. (PR: #1161)

RenderMan Plugin

  • Added support for arbitrary numbers of AOVs in HdPrman.

  • Removed deprecated RenderMan 22 Hydra plugin.

  • Material processing now uses SdrShaderNode::GetResolvedImplementationURI to locate shaders, which allows it consume shaders identified via UsdShadeShader's info:sourceAsset property.

  • Modified UsdVol support to allow easier extensions with custom volume plugin for RenderMan.

  • Fixed calculation of specularFaceColor in UsdPreviewSurfaceParameters.osl to better match the spec.

[20.05] - 2020-04-13

This release includes initial support for Python 3. Many thanks to our collaborators at Nvidia and SideFX for all of their work to make this happen!

The RenderMan 22 Hydra plugin is deprecated, and the deprecated Houdini and Katana plugins have been removed from the repository. See details below.

Build

  • Added support for Python 3. This may be enabled by specifying PXR_USE_PYTHON_3=TRUE when running cmake or by running build_usd.py with Python 3.

  • Updated C++ standard version to C++14 per VFX Reference Platform CY2018.

  • Updated CMake minimum version to 3.12. 2.x support was deprecated in 19.11.

  • Moved to Azure Pipelines for CI.

  • PySide2 is now preferred over PySide if both are installed. Users can specify PYSIDE_USE_PYSIDE=TRUE when running cmake to force the use of PySide.

  • Building examples and tutorials is now optional. (PR: #594)

  • Various fixes and changes to build_usd.py

    • Updated TBB (2017.6), Alembic (1.7.10), OpenImageIO (1.8.9), and OpenColorIO (1.0.9) dependencies for VFX Reference Platform CY2018 and/or to reflect versions used for testing internally.
    • Updated OpenSubdiv to 3.4.3. This removes the dependency on GLFW, which itself required X libraries on Linux. (Issue: #261)
    • Miscellaneous fixes. (Issue: #1110, Issue: #1126)

  • Made OpenEXR an optional dependency. It is only required for enabling OpenImageIO, OpenVDB, or OSL support. (PR: #1082)

  • Fixed strict builds on Linux when building with boost version 1.61 or earlier. (PR: #1081)

  • Fixed issue where warnings from 3rd-party headers would cause strict builds to fail.

  • Fixed bug where the boost_python library would not be found when building against boost 1.67+.

  • Fixed bug where specifying PXR_BUILD_DOCUMENTATION=TRUE but not having required programs would result in an incomplete build. (Issue: #1127)

  • Fixed incorrect instructions in README.md for running build_usd.py under Visual Studio 2017. (PR: #1120)

  • Fixed bug where build_usd.py would pick up external builds of boost 1.70 or later. (Issue: #1071)

  • Fixed bug in build_usd.py when building boost with Visual Studio 2019. (Issue: #1041)

  • Fixed issue where non-debug builds with Visual Studio 2019 would not work properly or crash immediately. (Issue: #1095)

  • Fixed several issues that caused errors when building a program against USD with clang on Windows. (Issue: #1030, PR: #1079)

  • Fixed issue where debug mode builds on Windows with Python bindings enabled would fail without a special debug build of Python. (PR: #785, Issue: #1006)

USD

  • Added typed value proxies to VtValue.

  • Added SdfPathAncestorsRange for iterating over an SdfPath's ancestors.

  • Added convenience scenegraph object accessor APIs to UsdPrim and UsdStage.

  • Added UsdPrim::GetInstances to get all instances of a master. (Issue: #962)

  • Added UsdPrimDefinition to represent the built-in properties of a given prim. Users can access a prim's definition via UsdPrim::GetPrimDefinition.

  • Added UsdUtilsConditionalAbortDiagnosticDelegate, a diagnostic delegate that aborts when an error or warning is encountered based on text-matching rules.

  • Added UsdUtilsSparseValueWriter::GetSparseAttrValueWriters to help with debugging. (PR: #1038)

  • Added UsdGeomHermiteCurves schema.

  • Deprecated 'hermite' and 'power' basis for UsdGeomBasisCurves.

  • Removed remnants of relationship-based shader encoding from UsdShade schemas.

  • Removed "shadow:include" and "shadow:exclude" from UsdLuxShadowAPI schema.

  • Removed raw spec access API from UsdSchemaRegistry in favor of the new UsdPrimDefinition objects.

  • For static USD builds, the Plug library now resolves plugin paths relative to the path of the executable that links to USD.

  • SdfLayer and UsdStage API for timeCodesPerSecond now fall back to using framesPerSecond if no timeCodePerSecond is specified.

  • Numerous optimizations for UsdStage load time and authoring speed.

  • UsdStage now sends notification when population mask, load rules, and interpolation type are changed. (Issue: #1139)

  • Applied API schemas now impart their properties and fallback values as builtins on the applied prim.

  • Concrete typed schemas can now provide fallback metadata values.

  • C++ typenames for schemas are no longer supported as prim typenames in scene description.

  • UsdGeomImageable now computes 'purpose' using non-pruning semantics. See documentation for UsdGeomImageable::ComputePurpose for a description of the new behavior.

  • Various fixes and changes for usdGenSchema

    • Added --headerTerminatorString option. (Issue: #1092, PR: #1097)
    • Output directory automatically created if it doesn't already exist.
    • Changed output in generatedSchema.usda for multiple-apply API schemas.
    • Changed output ordering for tokens in tokens.h.

  • Fixed race condition in UsdGeomBoundable::ComputeExtentFromPlugins that could cause incorrect results for bounds computations.

  • Fixed bug with value block handling in UsdFlattenLayerStack.

  • Fixed incorrect documentation on crate file structure. (Issue: #1072)

  • Fixed change processing bug for nested instancing that led to crashes.

  • Fixed bug reading .usdc files in .usdz files if USDC_USE_PREAD=1 was set.

  • Fixed usdedit failure on Windows due to file access conflicts. (PR: #1094)

  • Fixed line ending issue causing some tests to fail on Windows. (PR: #848)

Imaging

  • Added swizzle metadata to the output of UsdUVTexture. (Issue: #657)
  • Added ability to display unloaded prims as bounding boxes. (PR: #1145)
  • Added selection highlight outline capabilities (not exposed in usdview).
  • Added many more improvements to volume visualizations in Storm.
  • Added basic support for transporting pinned curves to UsdImaging.
  • Added support for computed vertex primvars for points prim in Storm.
  • Added support for element invising and point colors in basis curves.
  • Added hdTiny, a very simple example render delegate.
  • Added support for cascaded shadow maps (not exposed in usdview).
  • Added IsStopSupported/Stop/Restart APIs to render delegates.
  • Added transport of light filters through usdImaging.
  • Added HdResourceRegistry::ReloadResource API to allow for texture reloading.
  • Added USDVIEW_OCIO_LUT3D_EDGE_SIZE environment variable for setting 3D LUT size for OpenColorIO.
  • Removed IsFlipped() from certain Storm shaders for clean up.
  • Many changes to remove or replace uses of boost with C++ features.
  • Changed many APIs in Hgi as that subsystem continues to be built up.
  • Changed HdResourceRegistry APIs for several cleanups and fixes.
  • Replaced HdSceneDelegate::GetPrimPathForInstanceIndex with GetScenePrimPath.
  • Moved HdMaterialParam to HdSt and made it private.
  • Moved HdxSimpleLightingShader to HdSt.
  • Fixed issue with Storm shutdown on certain platforms.
  • Fixed several issues with selection highlighting (including issues relating to instancing) in usdImaging.
  • Fixed issue with Storm not drawing geometry when a PxrSurface is attached. (Issue: #1128)
  • Fixed issue where UsdUVTexture alpha output was driven by the wrong channel. (Issue: #657)
  • Fixed drawing of sphere implicit to be centered. (Issue: #1086)
  • Fixed handling of primvar addition and removal in Hydra. (Issue: #1078)
  • Fixed .glslfx processing to use Ar for resolving paths for includes.
  • Fixed parsing of texture default values for .glslfx files in Sdr.
  • Fixed issue with texture binding with certain configurations. (Issue: #1063)
  • Fixed several cleanup issues. (Issue: #1103, PR: #1104)
  • Fixed order of draw targets drawing in HdxDrawTargetTask.
  • Fixed default values for displayColor, displayOpacity and widths. (PR: #1098)
  • Fixed point instancer resync of prototypes. For example, we now resync prototypes properly if their material bindings change.
  • Fixed point instancer refresh in response to structural primvar and prototype updates. (PR: #1077)
  • Fixed HdRenderIndex::Clear to always call Finalize() for cleared rprims. (Issue: #1040)
  • Fixed color banding issue when using OpenColorIO.
  • Fixed reading stride with OpenImageIO. (Issue: #1080)
  • Fixed drawMode updates with native instancing. (Issue: #1069)
  • Fixed case sensitivity for image loading. (PR: #804)
  • Fixed issue with Storm shader generation when input and primvar names match.
  • Fixed debug flag not properly displaying source when shader fails to link. (PR: #1020)

usdview

  • Added ability to change font size.
  • Added 'Apply' button to renderer settings dialog.
  • Improved start up time by waiting until we've populated more of the UI.
  • Made free-cam's FOV part of saved user settings.
  • Fixed multi-line paste in the interpreter. (Issue: #1117)
  • Fixed errors when using PySide2 5.14.0 or later. (Issue: #1111)
  • Fixed errors when closing usdview with the native windowing system commands.

Alembic Plugin

  • Added file format arguments 'abcReRoot' for reparenting hierarchy beneath a new parent prim and 'abcLayers' for specifying a list of secondary files to load as layered Alembic. (PR: #1099)
  • Only deliver interesting timeSamples for constant properties. (PR: #1114)
  • Relaxed type-checking on position property and let any float[3] type through. (PR: #1115)
  • Removed need to link directly against Alembic backend libraries to open files.

Houdini Plugin

  • The Houdini plugin has been removed from the USD repository in favor of the native USD support in Houdini's Solaris suite.

Katana Plugin

MaterialX Plugin

  • Fixed bug where implementation file relative paths were assumed to be relative to the .mtlx file with the implementation node instead of to the MaterialX library itself.

RenderMan Plugin

  • Deprecated support for RenderMan 22. We anticipate removing the renderman-22 plugin in a future release.
  • Added support for HdAov clearValue.
  • Added support for Stop/Restart functionality.
  • Added early initial support for light filters and trace groups.
  • Fixed bug that caused empty renders when no scene camera was present. (Issue: #1113)
  • Fixed routing of ri:attributes properties when instancing is involved.
  • Fixed restarting of RenderMan when application is told that resources (e.g., textures) need to be reloaded.

[20.02] - 2020-01-24

We anticipate aligning with the version requirements from the VFX Reference Platform CY2018 (https://vfxplatform.com) in the next release. In particular, this includes requiring support for C++14.

This release adds a Hydra plugin for RenderMan 23 and removes the deprecated Maya plugin from the repository. This release also deprecates support for the Houdini and Katana plugins. See details below.

Build

  • The source tree has been restructured so that code no longer lives under a separate "lib" directory. This means that (with a few exceptions) include paths now match source tree paths.

  • Added support for Visual Studio 2019 to build_usd.py. (PR: #1042)

  • Added PXR_BUILD_USD_TOOLS option to disable building of command-line tools (e.g. usdcat, usdedit) (PR: #1048)

  • The PXR_LIB_PREFIX option now defaults to "" and is respected for .lib files on Windows. (Issue: #1027)

USD

  • Added "subIdentifier" and "sourceType" parameters to GetNodeFromAsset API in Ndr and Sdr and "subIdentifier" attribute to UsdShadeShader schema. This allows clients to identify and retrieve definitions for a particular shader in source assets that have multiple shaders defined in them. (Issue: #919)

  • Removed unused legacy SdfVariabilityConfig variability value.

  • Fixed bug where prims in masters would be populated incorrectly when a UsdStage's population mask contained paths descendant to masters.

  • Fixed bug where layer stack flattening would lose some variant selections. (Issue: #1060)

  • UsdStage::CreateClassPrim is no longer restricted to root prims. (Issue: #994)

  • UsdVariantSets::GetNames() now returns the union of all variant set names across layer stacks.

  • Improved performance of retrieving metadata with templated API in UsdObject.

  • Numerous changes to improve performance when making edits to many properties.

  • Removed support for inverse layer offsets which were deprecated in v0.8.2.

  • Removed support for legacy UsdShade encodings, yielding cleaner code and improved performance.

  • Improved diagnostics in usdGenSchema for non-identifier tokens in schema.usda.

  • Improved documentation generated by usdGenSchema for schema attributes.

  • usdGenSchema now treats all C++ and Python keywords as reserved and will prepend a "_" if they are encountered in any identifiers.

  • Modified UsdGeomXformCommonAPI to be generated and behave like other API schemas (as the name implies) for consistency.

  • Fixed bug in UsdGeomImageable::MakeVisible where the given prim would not be made visible if other "invis" opinions existed on ancestor prims. (PR: #1043)

  • Fixed bug in UsdGeomSubset::GetUnassignedIndices where passing in an invalid element count could lead to a crash. (Issue: #989)

  • Removed deprecated shader binding API on UsdShadeMaterial in favor of UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI schema.

  • Improved fidelity of light-related UsdRi schemas.

  • Added UsdLuxDomeLight::OrientToStageUpAxis utility for creating dome lights with an appropriate default orientation. (Issue: #938)

  • Added UsdMedia schema library and UsdMediaSpatialAudio schema.

  • Fixed bugs in UsdSkelCache::ComputeSkelBinding where inherited skel:skeleton bindings were incorrectly evaluated and bindings would be returned for inactive prims.

  • Python binding for UsdSkelSkinningQuery is now UsdSkel.SkinningQuery.

Imaging

  • Added RenderMan 23 Hydra plugin.
  • Added support for specifying thread limits and convergence criteria in HdPrman via settings.
  • Added initial support for light filters.
  • Added an Sdr parser plugin for .glslfx files.
  • Added support for material networks in Storm.
  • Added initial support for volume rendering in Storm.
  • Added basic support for bindless shadow maps in Storm.
  • Added primvar/points editing support for points, basis curves, and meshes in UsdImaging. Previously everything was resync.
  • Added Hydra changetracker dependencies between parent and child instancers.
  • Added new task HdxColorChannelTask to output a specific display channel.
  • Added command line option (--traceToFile) to usdview to start tracing as soon as the application is started.
  • Changed HdPrman linking to be independent of RenderMan install.
  • Changed "depth" AOV range from [-1, 1] to [0, 1].
  • Changed name "linearDepth" AOV to "cameraDepth".
  • Changed HdxPickHit "ndcDepth" field with a range of [-1,1] to "normalizedDepth" with a range of [0,1]
  • Changed edge hashing to use triangular numbers in Hd. This is about 3x faster than the previous code.
  • Changed UsdImaging's DrawModeAdapter to use HdMaterialNetwork.
  • Changed default camera shutter in UsdImaging to match UsdGeomCamera [0,0].
  • Improved Storm's instance registry and moved resource registries from Hd core to Storm.
  • Improved aggregation of material shaders in Storm.
  • Improved material primvar filtering in Storm.
  • Improved property refresh support in UsdImaging for instance attributes.
  • Removed HydraMaterialAdapter in UsdImaging since it is no longer needed.
  • Removed old Hydra scene delegate API that was only used by the old material system in Storm. (GetSurfaceShaderSource, GetDisplacementShaderSource, GetMaterialParams and others..).
  • Fixed instance adapter selection highlighting performance issues.
  • Fixed bug where pick task was continuously running in usdview.
  • Fixed Storm to skip string primvars.
  • Fixed bug where rtx_glfImage was not honoring the channel offset and number of channels specified in the FillRequest parameter.
  • Fixed nullptr exception in HdPrman when rendering without a camera.
  • Fixed data ownership of instance indices. DirtyInstanceIndex is set on instancers and tells them they need to re-fetch their index buffer, relative to one of their prototypes.
  • Fixed UsdImaging native instancing so instead of compensating for prototype transforms by overwriting prototype transforms, it compensates in the per-instance transform primvar.
  • Fixed usdSkelImaging dirtyness propagation to the skinning aggregator computation.
  • Fixed double color correction on MacOS.
  • Implemented SamplePrimvar for native instancer adapter. (Issue: #996)
  • Fixed UsdPreviewSurface material displacement in Storm. (Issue: #922, Issue: #1026)
  • Fixed change processing when an inherited primvar is removed. (Issue: #1004)
  • Fixed incorrect points buffer computation for implicit geometry. (Issue: #1024)
  • Added GetHgiTextureHandle API on renderbuffer to avoid HdSt dynamic_casts and CPU -> GPU copies during post-process pipeline (Issue: #1008)
  • Fixed TBB library linkage in hdEmbree. (PR: #991)
  • Added support for 'jpeg' extension for Glf_StbImage. (PR: #998)
  • Fixed bug where time-invariant geometry subsets would mask time-varying topology from Hydra. (PR: #1045)
  • Fixed bug where UsdGeomSubset indices were always retrieved at the default time. (PR: #1059)
  • Fixed incomplete handling of UsdGeomMesh face-varying options. (PR: #1061)

Houdini Plugin

  • Deprecated Houdini plugins in favor of Houdini-native USD support. We anticipate removing the plugin from the USD repository in a future release.
  • Additional changes for Houdini 17.5 compatibility.

Katana Plugin

  • Deprecated Katana plugin in favor of the Foundry-supported Katana plugins available at https://github.com/TheFoundryVisionmongers/KatanaUsdPlugins. We anticipate removing the plugin from the USD repository in a future release.
  • Changed how UsdGeomBasisCurve Widths and Normal attributes are read into Katana. Author either a geometry.point.* entry (old behavior) or a geometry.arbitrary.* entry (new behavior) based on the attribute's interpolation.
  • Changes in preparation for reading UsdShadeMaterials which contain UsdShadeNodegraph subgraphs.
  • Removed custom Viewer Modifier Plugins. These were used by Katana's legacy Viewer tab, which has been replaced by the Hydra Viewer tab.
  • Removed support for /LooksDerivedStructure in USD shader libraries.
  • Fixed incorrect geometry.instanceSource attribute for nested instances. (PR: #1015)

MaterialX Plugin

  • Added support for versions 1.36.3 and later.

Maya Plugin

[19.11] - 2019-10-18

This release deprecates support for cmake 2.x and the Maya plugin. See details below.

Build

  • Deprecated support for cmake 2.x. We anticipate requiring cmake 3.x in the next release.
  • build_usd.py now fails if using 32-bit Python, which is a common gotcha on Windows. (Issue: #921)
  • Fixed issue where build_usd.py would fail to build TBB on MacOS if CUDA was installed due to an issue in the TBB build system. (Issue: #767)
  • Made PXR_VERSION a valid and comparable integer in C++. (PR: #886)
  • Fixed issue where pxrTargets.cmake would include plugins with no exported symbols. This caused errors when building against USD on Windows. (Issue: #530)
  • Fixed issue where downstream cmake projects using pxrTargets.cmake could not find the USD headers.

USD

  • Added warning when reading a .usda layer with size in MB greater than value of SDF_TEXTFILE_SIZE_WARNING_MB environment variable. (PR: #980)

  • Added UsdStageLoadRules to support more robust and declarative intent about how payloads should be included in a UsdStage.

  • Added UsdPrimCompositionQuery to facilitate discovery of composition arcs affecting a UsdPrim.

  • Added "timecode" scene description value type. This type is represented by the SdfTimeCode class and can be used for attribute and metadata values. Layer offsets are applied to all timecode values during UsdStage value resolution, enabling "timing curve"-like attributes.

  • Added support for Google's Draco compression library. This includes an SdfFileFormat plugin for reading .drc files and a standalone "usdcompress" tool that extracts and compress Mesh primitives from a USD file, creates .drc files for each one, and references them back into a result USD file. (PR: #912)

  • Added --quiet flag to usdGenSchema for suppressing output. (PR: #480)

  • Added --brief flag to usddiff so differing lines are not printed.

  • Added support for indexed uint primvars to UsdGeomPrimvar. (PR: #861)

  • Added "accelerations" attribute to UsdGeomPointInstancer schema and updated UsdGeomPointInstancer::ComputeInstanceTransformAtTime(s) to account for authored accelerations, if present.

  • Added "accelerations" attribute to UsdGeomPointBased schema and added UsdGeomPointBased::ComputePointsAtTime(s) to compute point positions using authored velocities and accelerations, if present.

  • Added initial version of UsdRender domain and schemas. See documentation and white paper on openusd.org for more details. (Issue: #910)

  • Added UsdShadeInput::GetValueProducingAttribute to facilitate more robust and correct processing of UsdShade shading networks.

  • Added initial support for skinning mesh normals in UsdSkel.

  • Removed SdfAbstractDataSpecId and updated the SdfAbstractData interface to use SdfPath in its place. Existing SdfAbstractData subclasses must be updated to match. See this usd-interest post for more details: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/usd-interest/IVmd1t1GKBA

  • Numerous fixes for C++14 / gcc6 warnings. (PR: #869)

  • Various optimizations and cleanups in trace library.

  • Inherits and specializes arcs that target root prims ("global" arcs) are now combined with arcs that target sub-root prims ("local" arcs) for strength ordering in composition. Previously, local arcs would always be considered stronger than global arcs regardless of their authored order.

  • Calling UsdReferences::SetReferences (and equivalent API on UsdPayloads, UsdInherits, and UsdSpecializes) with an empty vector now authors an explicit empty list op instead of being a no-op. (Issue: #749)

  • Numerous fixes and changes to Sdr and associated parser plugins. This includes the addition of a "terminal" property type and "role" and "renderType" metadata to better describe shader properties and their representation in scene description.

  • Numerous optimizations for UsdStage load time and authoring speed.

  • Improved performance of adding empty sublayers to an existing UsdStage.

  • USD native instancing now includes both LoadRules and PopulationMasks in instancing keys, so different instances can have different load state. Instances that have equivalent load rules and population masks still share, but those that do not will use different masters.

  • Load/Unload operations on a UsdStage now must operate on the "expanded" stage namespace. That is, the namespace as it would be if instancing was disabled.

  • Updated UsdLuxDomeLight schema to clarify a dome light's orientation and its textures' orientation. (Issue: #938)

  • Changed 'pointIndices' attribute on UsdSkelBlendShape schema from uint[] to int[] for consistency with other core schemas. (Issue: #858)

  • Rewrote UsdSkelBakeSkinning to provide a more efficient baking solution.

  • Fixed bug where converting .usdc files from version 0.7 to 0.8 when saving an existing file would produce incorrect layer offsets in payloads.

  • Fixed crashes when calling methods on invalid Usd.SchemaBase objects in Python. (Issue: #872, PR: #876)

  • Fixed crash when muting and unmuting layers on a UsdStage. (Issue: #883)

Imaging

  • Renamed the real-time engine/rasterizer to "Storm"

  • Added support for dome lights in Storm.

  • Added support for screen-space adaptive tessellation and drawing for Loop scheme subdivision surface meshes when using OpenSubdiv 3.4 in Storm.

  • Added basic support for AOVs in Storm. In usdview, you can now switch between color and depth when using Hydra Storm.

  • Added Hgi (Hydra Graphics Interface) library. Hgi abstracts away graphics API calls in Storm.

  • Added HgiGL library, an OpenGL backend implementation for Hgi.

  • Added support for vstructs in Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Added support for light attributes in UsdImaging and Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Added an adapter in UsdImaging to read camera information, including custom camera parameters.

  • Added support for physical camera parameters in Hydra and Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Added support for camera motion blur in Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Added support to read any number of time samples authored in Usd. Improved Hydra API to allow render delegates to extract any number of samples from scene delegates.

  • Added API to HdRenderDelegate and the render thread to pause and resume renderers if supported. Updated Hydra RenderMan plugin to support it. (PR: #888)

  • Added API to HdRenderDelegate to return render stats to the client. Updated Hydra Embree to expose the number of samples completed this way. (PR: #888)

  • Added element/scope selection highlighting for raytraced backends.

  • Added basic support for NURBS curves to UsdImaging. For now, it will send them to the render delegate as basis curves.

  • Added support for UsdShadeNodeGraph to UsdImaging.

  • Added support for acceleration primvars in UsdImaging and Hydra.

  • Added support for inherited primvars to native instances.

  • Added instance-inheritance support for string-typed primvars.

  • Added convergence criteria to render settings in Hydra RenderMan.

  • Added support for basis curves instancing in Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Added support for OpenImageIO's IOProxy feature to allow supported image files (such as .exr) to be read from .usdz files.

  • Added "Set As Active Camera' on USD camera prims context menu in usdview.

  • Added a "Pause" menu item to usdview, and display the render status message.

  • Replaced the key/fill/back lights in usdview by a dome light, still only works in Storm for now.

  • Deprecated old material accessors on HdSceneDelegate in favor of using material networks in Storm.

  • Removed TrackVariabilityPrep/UpdateForTimePrep in UsdImaging.

  • Moved usdShaders from usdImaging/lib to usdImaging/plugin.

  • Moved rendererPlugin and rendererPluginRegistry from hdx to hd.

  • Moved UsdPreviewSurface conversion to the MatfiltFilterChain in Hydra RenderMan plugin.

  • Changed return type of HdRenderBuffer::Map from uint8_t to void*.

  • Improved handling of invalidations and edits of data such as instancers, primvars and others, in UsdImaging.

  • Improved 32 bit color support when using Hydra and the default task controller.

  • Improved draw item batching in Hydra Storm. (PR: #528)

  • Improved GLSL error reporting in Storm.

  • Improved usdrecord to allow more consistent results with usdview (e.g., default materials, purpose).

  • Prim browser in usdview now maintains its expansion-state and view when the stage recomposes.

  • Prim browser in usdview now behaves more like Maya's outliner with respect to viewport selections: the PrimView will no long expand/scroll to display the selected prim until you use the 'f' hotkey over it to frame the selection. Instead, all of the ancestors of selected prims will be highlighted in a secondary color.

  • Searches in the usdview prim browser begin at the currently selected prim rather than at the root of the scene.

  • Made usdview panes easier to resize by doubling size of splitter lanes.

  • Made usdview timeline playhead much larger to make it easier to grab.

  • Fixed inheriting primvars through instance boundaries when the primvar is an array.

  • Fixed the way UsdGeomPointInstancer calculates purpose and visibility across instance/master boundaries.

  • Fixed memory leak for draw items in Storm.

  • Fixed handling infinite bounds explicitly during GPU frustum culling in Storm.

  • Fixed UsdShadeShader material invalidations in UsdImaging.

  • Fixed handling of topology changes for basis curves in Storm.

  • Fixed ortho camera handling in Hydra RenderMan plugin.

Houdini Plugin

  • Added general methods for converting between USD values and GA_Attribute data.

  • Fixed missing usdSkel dependency. (PR: #827)

  • Detect skinning influences stored as detail attribs when converting to capture attributes. This allows rigid shapes to be coalesced into deforming agent shapes.

Katana Plugin

  • Point instancers with velocities now get motion blur on the first frame, even if their positions are not sampled at any previous frames.

  • Katana paths are now better aligned with USD paths when possible for point instancer prototypes.

  • Includes "prmanLightParams.iesProfileNormalize" when reading UsdLux lights in as RenderMan representations

  • Fixed bug where per-instance primvar values on point instancers could be inherited by the prototype geometry, causing warnings about mismatched sizes. (Issue: #893)

MaterialX Plugin

  • Fixed bug when reading a .mtlx file with more than 1 bindinput. (Issue: #950, PR: #956)

Maya Plugin

  • Deprecated Maya plugin in favor of the Autodesk maya-usd plugin available at https://github.com/Autodesk/maya-usd. We anticipate removing the plugin from the USD repository in the next release and recommend users begin transitioning to the Autodesk plugin -- it contains the same features as the Pixar plugin (in fact, it is the same code).

  • FindMaya.cmake module on MacOS (once again) supports paths that include the "Maya.app/Contents" subdirectory when specifying MAYA_LOCATION. (PR: #878)

  • Visibility for Maya point instancers is now exported to UsdGeomPointInstancer.

  • Maya "stroke" nodes are now exported as UsdGeomBasisCurves. (Issue: #867)

  • Various bug fixes and cleanup.

[19.07] - 2019-06-17

Build

  • Improved detection of GLEW and Ptex libraries during build. (PR: #808)
  • Fixed bug in build_usd.py that caused errors when specifying the "Xcode" CMake generator.

USD:

  • Various optimizations and cleanups in trace library.
  • Added iterator-based construction for VtArray. (PR: #644)
  • Added Python bindings for ArResolver::RefreshContext. (PR: #820)
  • Fixed incorrect results from NdrRegistry::GetAllNodeSourceTypes.
  • Removed unused spec types from Sdf.
  • Reimplemented SdfPath. The new implementation dramatically improves the performance of creating property paths, which is a key part of value resolution.
  • SdfFileFormat::IsStreamingLayer was moved to SdfAbstractData::StreamsData. SdfAbstractData implementations are now responsible for expressing whether they stream data from their back-end instead of SdfFileFormat.
  • Added file format arguments to SdfLayer::CreateAnonymous to match CreateNew.
  • Fixed bug where strings in scene description that look like format specifiers would be interpreted as such during .usda output.
  • Added dynamic payloads feature. Dynamic payloads allow file formats to procedurally generate a layer using metadata authored on the prim where the layer is introduced via a payload arc. See examples and "Advanced Features" documentation for more details.
  • Fixed erroneous composition cycle detection for subroot references to sibling prims across reference boundaries.
  • Added support for "schemaTokens" customData entry in schema.usda. This allows developers to associate tokens with a particular schema for clarity and organization. These tokens will continue to be emitted into the standard tokens.h and tokens.cpp files in each schema library.
  • Removed deprecated UsdListPositionTempDefault and USD_AUTHOR_OLD_STYLE_ADD environment variable.
  • Improved error detection for truncated .usdc files.
  • Improved error messages and debug output for USD schema generation. (PR: #427, PR: #478)
  • Fixed various issues that caused build errors on Windows. (Issue: #812)
  • Fixed bug that caused corrupt .usdc files to be created in certain rare cases. (Issue: #811)
  • Fixed bug where asset-valued stage metadata would not be resolved.
  • Calling Usd.Prim.IsDefined on a null prim in Python now raises a Python exception. (Issue: #753)
  • Fixed bug in UsdUtils dependency extraction and .usdz creation where asset dependencies in layer metadata were ignored.
  • Improved integer encoding and fixed a source of non-deterministic output in .usdc file format. (Issue: #830)
  • Added ability to usdcat to only show layer metadata via --layerMetadata command-line flag.
  • UsdGeomBasisCurves schema now accepts "pinned" as a valid value for wrapping to represent pinned curves.
  • UsdGeomPointInstancer will now use the "append" list op when authoring inactiveIds metadata instead of the deprecated "added" list op. This behavior can be reverted by setting the environment variable USDGEOM_POINTINSTANCER_NEW_APPLYOPS to 0, but this will be removed in a future release.
  • Added UsdShadeCoordSysAPI schema for representing coordinate systems.
  • Added shaping:ies:normalize attribute to UsdLuxShapingAPI.
  • Numerous fixes and improvements to UsdSkel schemas.

Imaging:

  • Added early version of RenderMan Hydra render delegate with support for geometry,material networks, lights, volumes, coordinate systems and more!
  • Added support for coordinate systems in Hydra and UsdImaging.
  • Added support for categories per instance in Hydra to support light linking to individual instances.
  • Added order independent transparency (OIT) to Hydra GL.
  • Added support for backend-independent picking and highlighting.
  • Improved Hydra support for scenegraph cameras.
  • Added support for instance-rate primvar queries in Hydra GL shading code.
  • Added support for generating normals for picking hits in Hydra GL.
  • Added "DontConform" camera window policy.
  • Added support for picking points in Hydra GL.
  • Added depth compositing to HdxColorizeTask.
  • Render delegates can now access "velocities" attribute on point-based schemas. (PR: #824)
  • Refactored and clarified use of "path" and "prim" terminology in UsdImaging.
  • Removed HdChangeTracker::MarkAllCollectionsDirty
  • Removed render tags API from HdRprimCollection. They have become a Hydra task concept.
  • Fixed instancing-related crashes in UsdImaging. (Issue: #838, Issue: #847)
  • Added usdAppUtils library containing common functionality and utilities for applications that view USD stages.
  • Added initial version of usdrecord command line tool for generating images from a USD file.
  • Added "debug flags" configuration dialog in usdview.
  • Added ability to specify first/last/current frame when launching usdview via "--ff", "--lf", and "--cf" command line parameters. (PR: #832)
  • Numerous correctness, interaction, and performance improvements to usdview's transport control (frame slider). (PR: #770)

Alembic Plugin:

  • Added support for Alembic 1.7.9. (PR: #825)

Houdini Plugin:

  • Support for Houdini 16.0 is deprecated. We anticipate bumping the minimum version requirement to 16.5 and dropping 16.0 support in the next release.
  • Fixed bug which could cause visibility to be incorrect.
  • Added support for export of additional primvar types.
  • Fixed bug which could cause incorrect attribute typeinfo when importing array attributes.
  • Added support for additional OSD subdiv interpolation tags.
  • Added support for targeting the default prim on import via a reserved "defaultPrim" prim path.
  • Miscellaneous improvements for converting between UsdSkel and Agent primitives.

Katana Plugin:

  • Added support for reading and resolving collection-based material bindings to PxrUsdIn. This is done as a two stage process in which bindings (for the purposes specified in "additionalBindingPurposeNames") are added within a "usd.materialBindings" group attribute. The PxrUsdInResolveMaterialBindings node (and its corresponding Op) transfers a purpose's binding to the system-level "materialAssign" attribute and optionally filters inherited redundancy.
  • The "info.usd" attributes which advertise which API schemas are applied can be created in either array or group attribute form. The latter is convenient to match against via CEL.

Maya Plugin:

  • Add support for exporting assembly edits on pxrUsdReferenceAssembly nodes.
  • Expose controls for tweaking selection parameters in pxrHdImagingShape.
  • Importing shaders and lights will use mel commands to property add shaders to hypershade and lights to the defaultLightSet.

[19.05] - 2019-04-10

Build

  • Added support for Ninja build system in build_usd.py. (PR: #590)
  • Added --build-debug option to build_usd.py. (PR: #502)
  • Better support for static builds in exported pxrConfig.cmake. (PR: #787)
  • .pdb files are now installed with the libraries on Windows. (PR: #502)
  • MacOS users can now run build_usd.py with Maya's Python interpreter (mayapy) to ensure that USD and the Maya plugin will be built against Maya's Python. This requires the --no-usdview option, as Maya does not provide the OpenGL module in Python. (Issue: #10)
  • Numerous fixes for FindMaya.cmake module. In particular, users on MacOS who specify MAYA_LOCATION should now use the root of the installation, without the "Maya.app/Contents" suffix.

USD:

  • Added usdtree utility for viewing the scenegraph at the command line. (PR: #619)
  • Added ability to configure default camera prim name via plugin and query the default name via UsdUtilsGetPrimaryCameraName.
  • Added UsdUtilsTimeCodeRange for representing an iterable range of time codes.
  • Added API to UsdGeom for setting and querying Stage-level linear units via the "metersPerUnit" metadata field.
  • Changed SdfFileFormat interface to operate in terms of SdfLayer instead of SdfLayerBase.
  • Improved performance of UsdGeomPointBased::ComputeExtent overload with an additional transform. (PR: #640)
  • Various cleanup changes to fix documentation, compiler warnings, and remove unused or legacy code.
  • Numerous changes to UsdSkel schemas for resolving and imaging blend shapes.
  • Removed UsdGeomFaceSetAPI schema.
  • Removed SdfLayerBase. Its functionality was folded into SdfLayer.
  • Fixed bug where parts of the codegen template for multiple-apply API schemas were specific to UsdCollectionAPI. (Issue: #799)
  • Fixed bug preventing the use of symlinks for generatedSchema.usda. (Issue: #763)
  • Fixed several bugs in .usdz creation related to nesting of .usdz files and file path syntax on Windows.

Imaging:

  • Added "MaterialTags" mechanism which allows the GL backend to render opaque primitives separated from translucent primitives.
  • Added early implementation of CPU/GPU UsdSkel skinning support, working in both GL and Embree backends.
  • Added early implementation of blend shapes support to UsdSkelImaging adapter.
  • Refactored renderer-independent input/output code into new "hio" library.
  • Added new phase for Hydra tasks called "Prepare", which runs after Sync phase and before Commit.
  • Added "instanceId" and "elementId" AOVs in HdEmbree.
  • Added new purpose cache in UsdImaging to improve performance.
  • Added support for animated textures in drawModeAdapter. (PR: #735)
  • TaskController::TestIntersections now allows selection by nearestToCamera. (PR: #760)
  • Split Hydra's color primvar into a float3 displayColor and a float displayOpacity.
  • Removed hidden GL dependencies in UsdImaging tests.
  • Removed unnecessary parameters from GetInstancerTransform and SampleInstancerTransforms in HdSceneDelegate API.
  • Fixed several issues with curve drawing in GL backend. (Issue: #690)
  • Fixed bug where UsdGeomSubset called Populate instead of Resync during resyncs.
  • Fixed leak of empty GlfSimpleShadowArray instance. (PR: #786)

Alembic plugin:

  • Fixed double time scaling when converting Alembic sample times from seconds to USD time codes. (Issue: #662)
  • USD's "timeCodesPerSecond" metadata is now used to scale when reading or writing an Alembic file.
  • Added support for facesets, which are represented using the UsdGeomSubset schema. (PR: #758)

Houdini plugin:

  • Added support for namespaced primvars in Houdini 17.5+. (PR: #747)
  • Added support for caching in-memory USD stages in GusdStageCache. (PR: #775)
  • Added support for import and export of holeIndices attribute on UsdGeomMesh.
  • Added support for all registered USD file extensions.
  • Changes in support of upcoming Houdini versions.
  • Fixed spurious warnings when evaluating transforms on pseudo-root prims.

Katana plugin:

  • The Katana plugin no longer supports Katana 2.x. Support for 2.x was deprecated in release 19.03.
  • Expanded support for and use of zero-copy construction of FnAttribute from VtArray.
  • Ensure that a NullAttribute is used to block an inherited shading connection when the USD equivalent is present.
  • PxrUsdIn will observe a "katana:useDefaultMotionSamples" USD attribute to hard-wire the equivalent behavior of a PxrUsdInDefaultMotionSamples node targeting that scope.
  • Fixed bug where calling UsdKatanaCache::FindSessionLayer with a cache key derived from an empty GroupAttribute would not return a layer whose key was generated for an invalid/nonexistent GroupAttribute.
  • Fixed crash in PxrUsdIn when an invalid regex value was given for "ignoreLayerRegex".

Maya plugin:

  • Added support for exporting units via new "metersPerUnit" metadata.
  • Imported shaders now appear in the Hypergraph UI.
  • Imported lights now appear in defaultLightSet.

[19.03] - 2019-02-13

Added

Build:

  • Ability to download and build OpenColorIO dependency via --opencolorio argument to support new color management functionality in Hydra.

USD:

  • Enabled usddumpcrate utility for viewing .usdc file information in the build. (PR: #470)

  • Internal payloads, list editing and layer offsets for payload arcs. Payloads now provide the same set of features as references.

    This may affect backwards compatibility of layers written with this version of USD:

    • Layers containing payloads using these new features will not be readable in previous USD versions. .usdc files containing these payloads will be marked as version 0.8.0.
    • Layers containing payloads that only use the previously-available features will continue to be readable in previous USD versions.

  • API for querying authored and inherited primvars in UsdGeomPrimvarsAPI schema.

  • Optional 'jointNames' attribute to UsdSkelSkeleton to help DCC import/export.

Imaging:

  • HdxColorCorrectionTask to do linear to sRGB conversions or color management via OpenColorIO.
  • HdxProgressiveTask type tag for tasks that support progressive rendering.
  • Initial support for computations in the UsdImaging scene delegate.
  • Support for points rendering for basis curves in Hydra GL.
  • Publish the normals attribute or primvar from points primitives through Hydra. (PR: #742)
  • usdview now responds to all scene edits from the interpreter. Plugins can connect to the usdviewApi.dataModel.signalPrimsChanged signal to be notified for these changes.

Houdini plugin:

  • Support for more primvar types.

Katana plugin:

  • Support for reading materials with multiple incoming shader connections.

Maya plugin:

  • Initial work for a UsdPreviewSurface shader node and USD export support.

Changed

Build:

  • build_usd.py now explicitly detects Python version to link against on macOS to avoid conflicts between multiple installations. (Issue: #19, Issue: #699)
  • build_usd.py only builds boost libraries like boost::filesystem when needed.

USD:

  • UsdStage::MuteAndUnmuteLayers and LoadAndUnload now send a UsdNotice::StageContentsChanged notification. (PR: #710)

Imaging:

  • UsdImaging scene delegate now stops population traversal at non-imageable prims.
  • Materials are no longer resynced on visibility changes.
  • Hydra will now only reset varying state for clean prims.
  • HdxCompositor can now copy depth without remapping its range and can also copy color and depth to a user-provided viewport size.
  • Interacting with the 'Vis' or 'Draw Mode' columns in usdview no longer changes selection.
  • When multiple prims are selected in usdview, changes in the 'Vis' column to one of those prims will affect all of them.

Katana plugin:

  • Optimizations for reading gprims and point instancers via a new library, vtKatana. This library requires Katana 3.0 or later.

Maya plugin:

  • Configuration of the default material scope name has been moved to usdUtils to facilitate sharing across plugins. See UsdUtilsGetMaterialsScopeName.

Deprecated

USD:

  • UsdAttribute::HasAuthoredValueOpinion in favor of HasAuthoredValue.
  • UsdPrim::ClearPayload, HasPayload, and SetPayload in favor of API on UsdPayloads object returned by GetPayloads.
  • Primvar API on UsdGeomImageable in favor of UsdGeomPrimvarsAPI schema.

Katana:

  • Support for Katana 2.x in favor of Katana 3.x. We anticipate removing support for Katana 2.x in the next release.

Removed

  • Dependency on boost::filesystem (Issue: #679)
  • Ability to read pre-xformOp transform attributes on UsdGeomXformable prims.
  • UsdShadeMaterial::CreateMaterialFaceSet, GetMaterialFaceSet, HasMaterialFaceSet functions.
  • UsdGeomCollectionAPI schema.

Fixed

Build:

  • Detection of Visual Studio on non-English platforms in build_usd.py. (Issue: #613, Issue: #697)

USD:

  • Error when composing prims with both direct and ancestral specializes arcs.
  • Incorrect strength ordering when composing specializes arcs declared across an internal reference arc.
  • UsdAttribute::GetConnections and UsdRelationship::GetTargets could return incorrect paths in cases involving nested instancing and instance proxies inside of masters.
  • Corrupted values when parsing OSL string arrays in Sdr via sdrOsl plugin.
  • Various fixes for UsdSkelSkinningQuery and UsdSkelAnimMapper.
  • Incorrect results from UsdGeomBBoxCache::ComputeRelativeBound.
  • UsdGeomPointInstancer enums in Python are now properly scoped under UsdGeom.PointInstancer instead of UsdGeom.

Imaging:

  • GlfDrawTarget::_BindAttachment could leave a different framebuffer bound than what was bound before calling the function.
  • Multiple GLSL shader fixes to allow Hydra GL to render correctly with Intel GPUs.
  • Errors when trying to use usdview on macOS due to incorrect handling of unsupported Hydra renderers. When no supported renderers are found, usdview will fall back to the legacy renderer.
  • Missing symbol exports in UsdVolImaging that could cause build errors on Windows. (PR: #742)
  • Regression in usdview that caused the "Redraw On Frame Scrub" option to always be in effect. (Issue: #734)

Alembic plugin:

  • Alembic curve basis, type, and wrap were being converted to varying attributes in USD instead of uniform.

Houdini plugin:

  • Incorrect display in Tree View panel when unimporting the top-most prim.
  • USD Reference ROP behavior when updating or removing an existing reference.
  • Various compilation errors with different Houdini versions.
  • Incorrect default value for horizontal aperture offset in USD camera node.
  • Vertex attributes on meshes with rightHanded winding order. (Issue: #631, PR: #632)

Maya plugin:

  • Incorrect name conflict error on export when stripping namespaces and merging transform and shape nodes. (PR: #683)

[19.01] - 2018-12-14

Added

USD:

  • usdresolve utility for checking the results of asset resolution at the command line. (PR: #609)
  • SdfFileFormat::FindAllFileFormats and FindAllFileFormatExtensions for querying available file formats. (PR: #532)
  • Option to UsdGeomBBoxCache to ignore visibility.

Imaging:

  • Render settings API to HdRenderDelegate. ("Enable Tiny Prim Culling" is the first example for Hydra GL)
  • Support for UDIM textures in Hydra GL. (PR: #597)
  • Blending controls to HdRenderPassState for initial transparency support in Hydra GL.
  • Ability to specify backend when starting usdview via "--renderer" parameter.
  • Optional "Draw Mode" column to prim browser in usdview that provides control of model draw modes. (texture cards, bbox, etc.)

Houdini plugin:

  • Optional layer scale, layer offset, and target prim parameters to the USD Reference ROP.
  • Option on USD Output ROP to use or ignore obj-level transforms.
  • Support for exporting ramp parameters in OSL shader networks.

Katana plugin:

  • "info.usd.outputSession" attribute authored by PxrUsdIn. This is a sibling to "info.usd.session" but is not affected by the translation of PxrUsdIn's old "variants" parameter into session data. It acts as a more stable session cache key for external apps to use.
  • "forceArrayForSingleValue" parameter that allows PxrUsdInAttributeSet to author 1-length arrays.

Maya plugin:

  • Support for instancing USD reference assemblies in instancers.

Changed

Build:

  • Symbols for wrapping functions are no longer exported from modules to avoid issues with using RTLD_GLOBAL in Python. (Issue: #641)
  • Updated minimum required version of GLEW to 2.0.0.

USD:

  • Numerous fixes and cleanup changes throughout to improve performance, remove dead code, convert code to more modern patterns, and remove unneeded uses of boost.
  • Replaced safe-bool idiom with explicit bool operator in several places.
  • Improved performance of setting and erasing time samples in .usda layers from linear complexity to logarithmic.
  • Improved error messages when attempting to read a .usdz files using compression or encryption.
  • Various improvements to UsdSkel documentation and API.
  • Changed scene description name for UsdSkelBindingAPI from "BindingAPI" to "SkelBindingAPI" to distinguish it from other binding API schemas.

Imaging:

  • Several improvements to the handling of AOVs in Hydra.
  • Simplified class hierarchy in usdImagingGL. The primary API entry point is now UsdImagingGLEngine.
  • Better performance for animated textures and large numbers of invisible prims in Hydra.
  • Optimized batch removal of prims in Hydra and UsdImaging.
  • Better handling of edits made in the interpreter in usdview.
  • Mesh normals are suppressed when the subdivision scheme is something other than "none".
  • The default stb-based image reader now extracts gamma information from .png images.
  • Functionality specific to the prim browser in usdview have been moved to a browser-specific menu bar with "Navigation" and "Show" menus.
  • Property browser in usdview now shows resolved material bindings and inherited primvars.

Maya plugin:

  • The name of the scope for exported material prims can now be customized in the UI or via the "materialsScopeName" parameter to usdExport. The default scope name is "Looks", matching the previous behavior.
  • Refactoring and cleanup in preparation for shading export support.

Removed

Build:

  • Build-time dependency on Python. (Issue: #605, PR: #615)

Imaging:

  • HdSceneTask in favor of HdTask.
  • UsdImagingGL and UsdImagingGLHdEngine.

Fixed

USD:

  • Incorrect composition error in cases involving internal sub-root references and variants. (Issue: #677)
  • Regression that caused prims to sometimes be composed incorrectly.
  • Missing symbol exports that could cause build errors on Windows. (PR: #623, Issue: #703, Issue: #704, Issue: #705)
  • Incorrect type validation and conversion when authoring metadata via Python that could lead to invalid scene description. (Issue: #529)
  • Various issues in usdzip and related usdUtils API when processing references for packaging into a .usdz file.

Imaging:

  • Batch aggregation for prims with face-varying primvars.
  • Drawing coord initialization of instance primvar slots.
  • Deep batch validation only happens when needed, improving performance.
  • Crash in cases where a prim is removed from a stage and a collection targeting that prim is updated in the same round of changes. (PR: #685)
  • Crash when reading half-float .exr images in the OpenImageIO plugin. (Issue: #581)
  • Incorrect handling of edits to material bindings.

Houdini plugin:

  • Issue where visibility and purpose attributes weren't properly inherited on import. (Issue: #649)
  • Crash when running ginfo on a USD file. (Issue: #673, PR: #674)
  • Issue where imported string attribute values could be incorrect. (Issue: #653)

Katana plugin:

  • Issues with reading UsdGeomPointInstancers
    • Regression in instance transform computation with masked instances.
    • Prototype transforms are cleared out on the Katana side since they are folded in when computing instance transforms.

Maya plugin:

  • Reference assemblies weren't being drawn in "playback" representation. (Issue: #675)
  • Issue where HdImagingShape prevented nodes from being reordered.

[18.11] - 2018-10-10

Added

USD:

  • [usdVol] UsdVol schema for representing volumes. (PR: #567)
  • [usdShade] Ability to define shaders in the shader definition registry using UsdShade.
  • [usdShaders] Shader definition registry plugin for core nodes defined in the UsdPreviewSurface specification.

Imaging:

  • [hd, usdImaging] Hydra support for UsdVol schema. (PR: #567)

  • [hd, hdSt] Topology visibility operations for meshes in Hydra.

  • [hd, hdSt] Support for inverting the depth test of a draw target.

  • [hd, hdSt] "Flat normals" computed buffer source for meshes.

  • [hdx] ResolveNearestToCenter pick hit resolution method for ray picking.

  • [usdview] Menu for switching AOVs for supported backends.

  • [usdview] Menu for backend-specific settings.

Alembic plugin:

  • [usdAbc] Behavior where an Xform with a single geometry or camera in an Alembic file would be collapsed into a single prim in USD can now be disabled by setting the environment variable USD_ABC_XFORM_PRIM_COLLAPSE to 0. (PR: #527)

Maya plugin:

  • [usdMaya] Display filter for USD proxy shapes.
  • [usdMaya, pxrUsdMayaGL] pxrHdImagingShape node that reduces overhead when imaging scenes with many Hydra-backed shapes.
  • [pxrUsdMayaGL] Support for Maya lights casting shadows between Hydra shapes, and Hydra shapes to Maya shapes, but not Maya shapes to Hydra shapes.

Houdini plugin:

  • [gusd] Experimental build support for Houdini plugin on Windows.
  • [OP_gusd] Multi-seg export to USD output ROP.

Changed

  • Numerous fixes and cleanup changes throughout to improve performance, convert code to more modern patterns, and remove unneeded uses of boost. (PR: #373, PR: #453, PR: #481, PR: #484, PR: #488)

USD:

  • [usd] UsdAPISchemaBase is now an abstract base class as originally intended.
  • [usdGeom] Improved performance of UsdGeomPointBased::ComputeExtent. In one example, this provided a ~30% improvement. (PR: #588)
  • [usdGeom] Improved performance of computing extents for UsdGeomPointInstancer. In one example with >5 million instances, extent computation time decreased from ~25 seconds to ~3 seconds.
  • [usdSkel] UsdSkelBakeSkinning bakes skinning at additional time samples based on stage's configured sampling rate.
  • [usdedit] Opening a .usdz file now forces read-only mode.
  • [usdzip] "-l" or "-d" arguments will now provide information about existing .usdz files.
  • [usdzip] ARKit compliance checks now require valid sources for shader inputs with connections and valid prims and/or collections for material bindings.

Imaging:

  • [hd] Improved Hydra AOV API.
  • [hd] Split reprs into the topology indices they affect.
  • [hd] Properly set up both the shadow projection and view matrices. (PR: #583)
  • [hd] Optimization to not run garbage collection if a texture hasn't change.
  • [hd, hdSt, usdImaging] Update wrap mode fallback behavior to useMetadata.
  • [hdx] Improved shadow support in HdxTaskController. (PR: #541)
  • [hdx] "Enable Hardware Shading" entry point is now "Enable Scene Materials".
  • [hdSt] Support to generate GLSL-compatible names for resources/primvars.
  • [usdImagingGL] Better support for animated textures. (PR: #488)
  • [usdview] Better error reporting if an unsupported backend is selected. (PR: #635)
  • [hdEmbree] Improved AO sampling (cosine-weighted sampling, stratified AO samples LHS).

Maya plugin:

  • [pxrUsdMayaGL] Many performance improvements in the Hydra batch renderer.
  • [usdMaya, pxrUsdMayaGL] Using USD in live surface uses the normal at the snap point.
  • [usdMaya, pxrUsdTranslators] Various code cleanup in USD exporter.

Katana plugin:

  • [usdKatana] Use bracketing sample closest to shutter open/close if no frames found in shutter interval.
  • [usdKatana] Honor UsdStage's authored timeCodesPerSecond and framesPerSecond. If they differ, Katana will operate in frames, with current time, motion samples, and shutter interval scaled appropriately.

Houdini plugin:

  • [gusd] Rebind materials when creating sub-root references.
  • [gusd] Optimizations in handling of stage mask operations.
  • [OP_gusd] USD output ROP now allows binding to shaders referenced from other models.

Removed

Imaging:

  • [hd] Removed Repr requirements from GetRenderTag API.

Fixed

Build:

  • [cmake] User-specified CMAKE_MODULE_PATH was being ignored during build. (PR: #614)
  • [cmake] Installed headers could take precedence over source headers, leading to build failures. (Issue: #83)

USD:

  • [tf] TfEnvSetting crash on MSVC 2017.
  • [ar] ArDefaultResolver::AnchorRelativePath did not call IsRelativePath on derived resolvers. (PR: #426)
  • [sdf] SdfCopySpec did not handle copying prim specs to variants and vice-versa.
  • [sdf] Incorrect notification was sent when removing subtrees of inert specs.
  • [usd] Prim payload was not automatically loaded when a deactivated ancestor prim with a payload was activated. (Issue: #604)
  • [usd] Incorrect lists of time samples would be returned in certain cases with value clips.
  • [usd, usdzip] .usdz files were not fully compliant with the zip file format specification.
  • [usdUtils, usdzip] Creating an ARKit .usdz file with a .usda asset would create an invalid file.
  • [usdMtlx] MaterialX plugin build failures on Windows and macOS. (Issue: #611)

Imaging:

  • [hdx] Picking with disabled scene materials generating shader errors.
  • [hdSt] Fix immediate draw batch invalidation on buffer migration.
  • [hdSt] Fix garbage collection on buffer migration.
  • [hdSt] Bindless texture loading not being deferred.
  • [usdImaging] Wrong transforms were being used when using usdLux light transforms (Issue: #612).
  • [usdImaging] Fix for usdImaging's TextureId not accounting for origin.

Houdini plugin:

  • [gusd] Several fixes for building with Houdini 17. (PR: #549)
  • [gusd] Several fixes for stale caches and crashes.
  • [gusd] Potential PackedUSD transform issues in Houdini 16.5.

[18.09] - 2018-08-07

This release includes several major new features and changes, including:

  • .usdz file format for packaging assets into a single file
  • Introduction of UsdPreviewSurface
  • Switch to calendar-based versioning scheme for USD libraries

Added

  • Build:

    • build_usd.py can be given custom arguments for building libraries via the --build-args option.
    • Option to disable building usdview by specifying PXR_BUILD_USDVIEW=OFF when running cmake or --no-usdview when running build_usd.py.
    • Allow specifying Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS to cmake on Windows. Note that static boost libraries may lead to issues with Python bindings. (Issue: #407)

  • USD:

    • ArAsset and ArResolver::OpenAsset interfaces allowing resolvers to control how data for a given asset is accessed.
    • "Package" asset and layer concepts to Ar and Sdf, including "package-relative" asset path syntax for addressing assets within packages.
    • sdffilter utility for inspecting and summarizing the contents of a layer.
    • .usdz file format. This format allows multiple assets (including layers, textures, etc.) to be packaged into a single file that can be consumed by USD without being unpacked to disk. These files can be created via the "usdzip" command-line utility or via APIs like UsdZipFileWriter and UsdUtilsCreateNewUsdzPackage.
    • UsdStage::GetObjectAtPath for retrieving a generic UsdObject. (PR: #390)
    • UsdCollectionAPI can represent collections that include all paths or exclude some paths but include all others via the new "includeRoot" attribute.
    • Support for "sourceAsset" and "sourceCode" implementation sources in UsdShadeShader.
    • Ndr and Sdr libraries that provide a registry for shader definitions that can be extended via plugins.
    • sdrOsl plugin for populating shader definition registry from OSL 1.8.12. OSL support must be enabled by specifying PXR_ENABLE_OSL_SUPPORT=TRUE when running cmake.
    • usdMtlx plugin containing USD file format and shader definition registry plugins based on MaterialX 1.36.0. MaterialX support must be enabled by specifying PXR_BUILD_MATERIALX_PLUGIN=TRUE when running cmake.
    • Initial UsdSkel schema for blend shapes, which are not yet factored into computed deformation.

  • Imaging:

    • Per-prim adaptive refinement enabled via materials in hdSt.
    • Preliminary AOV support in Hydra with sample implementation in Embree plugin.
    • HdRenderThread utility class to enable render delegates to render in background threads. The Embree plugin uses this class as an example.
    • Support for scene-authored normals on meshes.

  • UsdImaging:

    • Light linking support.

    • Initial support for USD material preview nodes. For more details, see: http://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/UsdPreviewSurface-Proposal.html

      Currently unimplemented features include:

      • Support for automatically computed tangents when normal mapping. Primvars must be supplied.
      • Handling for ior (index or refraction).

  • Alembic plugin:

    • Support for TextureCoordinate role and value types.

  • Maya plugin:

    • Initial support for exporting .usdz files.
    • Support for importing and exporting volume and displacement in "pxrRis" shading mode.
    • pxrUsdPointBasedDeformerNode - an animation cache deformer that allows users to pose a Maya mesh based on a UsdGeomPointBased prim.
    • Option to apply Euler filtering to transforms during export. (PR: #299)
    • Option to filter out certain Maya node types during export. (PR: #475)

  • Katana plugin:

    • Support for TextureCoordinate role and value types.
    • Support for importing inherit paths metadata as a info.usd group attribute
    • "additionalLocations" parameter to PxrUsdInVariantSelect
    • "asArchive" option to PxrUsdIn. When enabled, a "usd archive" location will be created rather than loading the USD data directly. This is intended for passing along to renderers which support reading USD natively.
    • PxrUsdIn supports a "sharedLooksCacheKey" attribute to permit sharing cached USD shading information across multiple references/instances which are known to be identical from a pipeline standpoint.

  • Houdini plugin:

    • Support import of Scope prims.

Changed

  • Build:

    • USD resource files are now installed into /lib/usd instead of /share/usd/plugins to bring them closer to the installed libraries.
    • OpenGL dependency in imaging is now optional and may be disabled by specifying PXR_ENABLE_GL_SUPPORT=FALSE when running cmake. This will disable all GL-based functionality, including usdview.
    • OpenImageIO dependency imaging is now optional and is disabled by default. Support must be enabled by specifying PXR_BUILD_OPENIMAGEIO_PLUGIN=TRUE when running CMake or --openimageio when running build_usd.py.
    • build_usd.py on Windows will now use powershell to download dependencies if it's available to avoid TLS 1.2 issues. (Issue: #449)
    • build_usd.py now directs users to install PySide2 via pip on MacOS.

  • USD:

    • Numerous fixes and cleanup changes throughout to improve performance, convert code to more modern patterns, and remove unneeded uses of boost.
    • ArGetResolver no longer returns an instance of the ArResolver subclass used for asset resolution. Clients can use ArGetUnderlyingResolver in the special cases where access to the exact subclass is necessary.
    • ArResolver context and scoped cache functions are now public and have been renamed to match convention. Resolvers that override these functions will need to be updated.
    • ArDefaultResolver default context for an asset now includes the directory of the asset in its search path.
    • Optimizations to prim change processing in UsdStage. In one example, processing time for adding new prims decreased ~50%.
    • New .usdc files now default to version 0.7.0, which includes compression features introduced in earlier releases. These files cannot be read in USD releases prior to v0.8.4. Users can revert to writing older versions by setting the environment variable USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION to an older version.
    • Several changes to provide cleaner and more detailed runtime error messages.
    • Better support for generating code for properties of multiple-apply API schemas in usdGenSchema.
    • Schema types are now specified using the UsdSchemaType enum instead of individual flags.
    • "expansionRule" attribute for UsdCollectionAPI is now optional; collections are created simply by calling UsdCollectionAPI::ApplyCollection.
    • UsdGeomBBoxCache's bounds computation now includes all defined prims, including those with no type specified.
    • UsdRiMaterialAPI now writes standardized "ri:surface" output by default instead of deprecated "ri:bxdf".
    • UsdRiStatementsAPI now writes ri attributes as primvars by default.
    • Renamed UsdSkelPackedJointAnimation schema to UsdSkelAnimation
    • Renamed UsdSkelBakingSkinningLBS function to UsdSkelBakeSkinning
    • Numerous additional fixes and changes to UsdSkel schemas and APIs.

  • Imaging:

    • Several API cleanup changes in HdSprim/HdBprim/HdRprim.
    • HdRenderDelegate::CanComputeMaterialNetworks has been replaced by GetMaterialBindingPurpose, which has a default value of "preview".
    • Improved handling of fallback texturing behavior when texture inputs are missing from a material.
    • .png, .jpg, .bmp, .tga, and .hdr images are now handled by a built-in image reader based on stb_image.
    • Texture loading is deferred until needed.
    • Truncate mesh vertex primvar data to expected length if larger than expected.
    • Improved ptex rect packing performance. In one large test case, processing time decreased from ~600s to ~40s.

  • UsdImaging:

    • Avoid loading custom shaders and textures when the "Enable Hardware Shading" option is disabled in usdview.
    • Default values for wrapS/wrapT match the proposed value in the preview material spec. Also adds support for mirrored wrapS/wrapT.
    • Scene lights are now enabled by default. This can be disabled by setting the environment variable USDIMAGING_ENABLE_SCENE_LIGHTS to 0.
    • UsdShadeMaterialAPI is now used instead of UsdRi to look up material networks.

  • Alembic plugin:

    • Alembic writer now prefers writing to the "st" attribute instead of "uv". (PR: #463)

  • Maya plugin:

    • MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH and XBMLANGPATH environment variable settings have changed due to new resource file install location documented above. Refer to Maya plugin documentation for new values.
    • Large refactoring and cleanup of usdMaya. USD importers and exporters for built-in Maya nodes have been moved to pxrUsdTranslators plugin.
    • Proxy shape now redraws in response to changes on UsdStage.
    • Diagnostic messages are now batched together for better reporting behavior and to prevent log spewage.
    • Improved primvar export. (PR: #330)
    • Camera shake now applied to USD cameras on export. (PR: #366)

Deprecated

  • USD:
    • UsdSkelPackedJointAnimation schema in favor of UsdSkelAnimation
    • Specialized RIS and RSL shader schemas in UsdRi (e.g. UsdRisPattern and UsdRisBxdf) in favor of generic UsdShadeShader prims.

Removed

  • Build:

    • boost::regex dependency.

  • USD:

    • ArResolver::CreateDefaultContextForDirectory to better accommodate asset systems that are not file-system based.
    • SdfExtractExternalReferences. UsdUtilsExtractExternalReferences can be used as an alternative.
    • UsdLuxLinkingAPI, in favor of UsdCollectionAPI to represent light linking.

Fixed

  • Build:

    • Fixed issues with using Visual Studio 2017 in build_usd.py.
    • Issue preventing use of NMake generator on Windows. (PR: #519)
    • Several fixes for static library builds.

  • USD:

    • Bug where SdfLayer::GetDisplayName would return an empty string for anonymous layers if the tag contained a ":". (PR: #440)
    • Bug where SdfLayer::UpdateExternalReferences would not handle variants and payloads correctly.
    • Incorrect load state handling in UsdStage for payloads introduced across sub-root references, inherits, and specializes arcs.
    • Incorrect value clip time mapping during value resolution on UsdStage.
    • Change processing bug when adding a new inert prim spec.
    • Load/unload change processing bug with nested instances on UsdStage.
    • Crash when opening a UsdStage with a UsdStagePopulationMask containing instance prims. (Issue: #497)
    • Test failures when USD_EDITOR environment variable is set. (Issue: #505)
    • Bug where non-constant primvars were inherited down namespace in UsdGeomPrimvarsAPI.

  • Imaging:

    • Triangulation/quadrangulation of face varying for refined meshes.
    • Several selection and picking issues.

  • UsdImaging:

    • Material binding to instanced prims.
    • Change processing for UsdShadeShader prims beneath UsdShadeMaterial prims.

  • Alembic plugin:

    • Texture coordinate indices are now preserved. (PR: #520)

  • Katana plugin:

    • Several asset resolution fixes. (Issue: #535)
    • Bug preventing correct inheritance of motion sample times overrides as authored by PxrUsdInDefaultMotionSamples and PxrUsdInMotionOverrides in Katana plugin.

  • Houdini plugin:

    • Fixed several display and update issues with treeview panel.
    • Fixed bug in batched loading of masked prims.

[0.8.5a] - 2018-05-21

Fixed

  • Fixed broken URL in build_usd.py for downloading libtiff. (Issue: #498)

[0.8.5] - 2018-05-07

Added

  • New 'trace' library providing performance profiling functionality.
  • API to Ar for resolver implementations that wrap around other resolvers.
  • TextureCoordinate role and TexCoord{2,3}{h,f,d}{Array} value types to Sdf to indicate attributes that represent UV(W) texture coordinates.
  • UsdUtilsSparseValueWriter and UsdUtilsSparseAttrValueWriter utility classes for authoring attribute values sparsely.
  • UsdGeomPrimvar::GetIndicesAttr API for indexed primvars.
  • UsdGeomPrimvarsAPI schema for accessing primvars, including primvar values inherited down namespace. This is intended as an eventual replacement for the primvar API on UsdGeomImageable.
  • API to UsdShadeMaterial to support render context-specific terminal outputs and core support for three universal render context outputs: surface, displacement, and volume.
  • Time-sampling support for UsdGeomPointInstancer via new methods for computing extents and instance transforms at multiple times.
  • Finalize method for sprims and bprims in Hydra.
  • Time-sampling support in Hydra for geometry instancing.
  • Maya plugin users can specify if colors coming from Maya are linear via the PIXMAYA_LINEAR_COLORS environment variable.
  • Support for import/export with new TextureCoordinate role in Maya plugin.
  • Support for cards drawMode in USD reference assembly in Maya plugin.
  • Support for LiveSurface with proxy shapes in Maya plugin.
  • Support for importing UsdSkel schemas and exporting locators and particles in Maya plugin.
  • Option for placing exported data in parent scope in Maya plugin.
  • Initial support for session layer metadata in PxrUsdIn in Katana plugin.
  • Support for reading in UsdLuxCylinderLight schemas in Katana plugin.
  • Gusd Python bindings for Houdini plugin.

Changed

  • USD now requires TBB version 4.4 Update 6 or later.

  • Removed GLUT dependency for libtiff in build_usd.py. (Issue: #402)

  • build_usd.py will now use cURL to download dependencies if it's installed in the user's PATH. This can help avoid TLS v1.2 errors when downloading from certain sites. (Issue: #449)

  • Numerous documentation additions and fixes throughout the codebase.

  • Improved performance of SdfCopySpec and UsdUtils stitching API; one test case showed a 35% speed improvement, from 160s to 118s.

  • SdfLayer now uses the resolved path provided by Ar for a given identifier to determine the layer file format. (Issue: #144)

  • Simplified API for setting layer data in SdfFileFormat subclasses.

  • Adding or removing invalid sublayers now results in composition errors.

  • UsdStage::CreateNew and CreateInMemory now accept an InitialLoadSet argument. This controls whether new payloads are loaded automatically. (Issue: #267)

  • UsdStage::ExpandPopulationMask now considers attribute connections.

  • UsdStage::Flatten now authors anchored asset paths in flattened results.

  • UsdTraverseInstanceProxies() now includes instance proxy prims that pass the default predicate instead of all prims.

  • .usdc files now support zero-copy array access, which can significantly improve performance. This feature is supported by all .usdc file versions, but may not be activated for certain files depending on their data alignment. In these cases, users can simply re-export the file to activate zero-copy access.

    Users can set the environment variable USDC_ENABLE_ZERO_COPY_ARRAYS to 0 to disable this feature. Users can also track cases where array data is copied due to modifications by setting the environment variable VT_LOG_STACK_ON_ARRAY_DETACH_COPY to 1.

  • Other performance improvements in UsdStage composition.

  • API schemas are now classified as either "applied" or "non-applied". See "Generating New Schema Classes" tutorial for more information.

  • Behavior of UsdUtils stitching API can now be customized via callbacks.

  • UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI now issues a warning when computing resolved material bindings if prims with old "look:binding" relationships are found. This can be disabled by setting the environment variable USD_SHADE_WARN_ON_LOOK_BINDING to 0.

  • UsdRiMaterialAPI now supports writing ri:surface outputs. ri:bxdf outputs are still written by default, but this can be disabled by setting the environment variable USD_RI_WRITE_BXDF_OUTPUT to 0.

  • UsdRiStatementsAPI now supports encoding ri attibutes as primvars. This is disabled by default but can be enabled by setting the environment variable USDRI_STATEMENTS_WRITE_NEW_ATTR_ENCODING to 1.

  • Additions and improvements to UsdLux and UsdSkel schemas.

  • Hydra backends that consume full network materials now receive all primvars for all rprims, not just those with bound materials.

  • Several improvements to primvar handling and picking infrastructure in Hydra.

  • Several performance improvements in Hydra, especially for material bindings and scenes with heavy nesting of instances.

  • Ongoing work on Hydra compute framework.

  • Conformed Hydra API to use "Primvar" instead of "PrimVar".

  • HdMaterialNetwork is now emitted in topological order.

  • Redundant animation data is no longer written during Maya export.

  • Katana plugin now allows parent scope names for materials other than "Looks". This can be enabled by setting the USD_KATANA_ALLOW_CUSTOM_MATERIAL_SCOPES environment variable to 1.

  • Refactor material loading in Katana plugin so that material locations aren't computed all at once and site ops can run on each location individually.

  • Improved construction of material terminal outputs in Katana plugin.

  • Caching improvements in Houdini plugin to share USD stages between loaded primitives when possible.

  • Improved error handling and reporting in Houdini plugin.

  • USD stage masking in Houdini plugin can now be disabled via GUSD_STAGEMASK_ENABLE environment variable.

  • Improved performance when opening USD stages which don't use "component" kind in their model hierarchy.

  • Object-level transforms are now written at a higher-level scope than leaf primitives if possible in Houdini plugin.

Deprecated

  • UsdGeomFaceSetAPI in favor of UsdGeomSubset.
  • UsdGeomCollectionAPI in favor of UsdCollectionAPI.

Removed

  • tracelite library, which has been replaced with the trace library.
  • Conversions for Python's datetime and dependency on boost::date_time.
  • Several unused classes and functions.
  • usdHydra schemas. This functionality is being replaced with by a registry of shaders in a future release.
  • API for ri:bxdf output on UsdRiMaterialAPI schema. ri:bxdf sources will still be returned by UsdRiMaterialAPI::GetSurface for backwards compatibility.

Fixed

  • Build errors when using ninja.
  • Error when extracting boost on Windows in build_usd.py. (Issue: #308)
  • The build now prefers Alembic library specified at cmake time over any Alembic library found in PATH. (Issue: #409)
  • Several compile-time warnings on clang and other compilers.
  • Bug where list-op valued metadata was not emitted by UsdStage::Flatten.
  • Missing notifications for master prims affected by metadata/property changes.
  • Crash in UsdCollectionAPI::ApplyCollection when given an invalid collection name. (Issue: #425)
  • Change processing for changes to drawMode property in imaging.
  • Numerous fixes to cards draw mode.
  • Change processing bug when removing nested point instancers.
  • Crashes in pxOsd due to incorrect authored crease data.
  • Bug where usdview would not redraw after switching renderer.
  • Crash in Alembic plugin when reading files with object names beginning with numerals.
  • Change processing bug when reloading an Alembic layer. (Issue: #429)
  • Several crash bugs in Maya plugin.
  • Material export bug in Maya plugin where the surface terminal was not being exported under the "ri" render context. This fix requires re-exporting any material networks exported from Maya using version 0.8.4.
  • Prevent overwriting instance sources that resolve to the same master name in Katana plugin.
  • Path resolution issue in Houdini plugin.
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes in Houdini plugin.

[0.8.4] - 2018-03-05

Added

  • The PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME environment variable name may be changed by specifying PXR_OVERRIDE_PLUGINPATH_NAME=<name> when running cmake.
  • Example sendmail plugin for usdview, located at extras/usd/examples/usdviewPlugins/sendMail.py
  • ArDefaultResolverContext, a context object for the ArDefaultResolver asset resolution implementation that allows additional search paths to be used during asset resolution.
  • Users can now query the UsdNotice::ObjectsChanged notice for the changed scene description fields that affected the reported objects.
  • UsdAPISchemaBase base class for all API schemas.
  • All UsdGeomBoundable schemas in usdGeom now have functions for computing extents. These functions are also used when calling the general UsdGeomBoundable::ComputeExtentFromPlugins method.
  • UsdLuxCylinderLight schema.
  • Significant additions to edge and point selection and highlighting capabilities in Hydra.
  • Initial support for UsdSkel bones in usdImaging.
  • Initial support for exporting joints and skin clusters using the UsdSkel schema in the Maya plugin.
  • Documentation for third party plugin code is now included in the doxygen build.

Changed

  • build_usd.py no longer checks for pyside-uic or boost::python if Python support is disabled, and no longer builds OpenImageIO's Python bindings.
  • Updated moduleDeps.cpp files to only register direct library dependencies. This makes it easier for users to generate their own file for custom schemas.
  • ArDefaultResolver now allows search paths like "Dir/File.usd" to be anchored to other paths via AnchorRelativePath. During composition, these asset paths will be resolved relative to the layer where they were authored before falling back to the previous search path behavior.
  • Updates to VtArray and .usdc code in preparation for zero-copy functionality.
  • Inherit and specializes arcs to non-existent prims are no longer considered composition errors.
  • Apply method on API schemas have been moved to UsdAPISchemaBase and now require a UsdPrim. Also improved documentation.
  • Property queries on UsdPrim now accept a predicate for filtering results.
  • UsdPrim::HasAPI now accepts an instance name argument to query if a prim has a particular instance of a multiple-apply API schema has been applied.
  • Adding or removing an inert prim spec no longer causes affected prims to be resynced. These prims are now reported as "changed info only" in the corresponding UsdNotice::ObjectsChanged notice.
  • UsdNotice::ObjectsChanged::GetResyncedPaths and GetChangedInfoOnlyPaths now return a custom range object instead of a SdfPathVector.
  • Performance optimizations for querying properties on UsdPrim.
  • Replaced UsdCollectionAPI::AddPrim/RemovePrim with IncludePath/ExcludePath.
  • UsdGeomBoundable::ComputeExtentFromPlugins now accepts an optional transform matrix, which may be used to provide more accurate bounds.
  • UsdGeomBBoxCache now computes extents for all UsdGeomBoundable schemas.
  • Performance optimizations in UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI.
  • Numerous changes and fixes to UsdSkel schemas.
  • Significantly improved curve rendering in Hydra.
  • Many improvements towards the goal of getting modern UsdShade materials through Hydra to various kinds of backends.
  • Performance improvements to hydra gather phase via multi-threading and other optimizations.
  • Changed complexity options in usdview to prevent users from inadvertently bumping the complexity value too high and hanging the application.
  • Several tweaks and improvements to usdview UI.
  • Refactored Maya/Hydra batch renderer to improve performance for imaging USD proxy shape nodes.

Removed

  • UsdShadeLook schema. This has been replaced by UsdShadeMaterial. Material bindings authored using the "look:binding" relationship are no longer respected.

Fixed

  • Various typo and compiler warning fixes throughout the codebase.
  • Fixed bug where build_usd.py would not use the CMake generator specified at the command line.
  • Fixed crash in Apply method on API schemas.
  • Fixed several bugs in UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI::ComputeBoundMaterial.
  • Changing the population mask for a UsdStage now correctly releases resources used by objects that have been excluded from the stage.
  • Fixed quadrangulation bug in Hydra with handling topology with degenerate or hole faces.
  • Fixed patch param refinement for Loop meshes.
  • Several fixes to the nascent Hydra lights pipeline.
  • Fixed bug in the usdExport AlembicChaser in the Maya plugin where primvars that match the primvarprefix do not get exported. They are now exported with constant interpolation, and using _AbcGeomScope is no longer required.
  • Fixed bug in Katana plugin where infinite recursion would occur in pxrUsdIn when sources were outside the scope of the point instancer. (Issue: #286)

[0.8.3] - 2018-02-05

Added

  • Compression in .usdc files for integer arrays and scalar floating point arrays. The latter are compressed if the values are all integers or there are a small number of unique values. In the example Kitchen Set asset on the USD website, the total size of the geometry layers decreased by ~46%, from 25 MB to 14 MB.

    .usdc files with this new compression enabled are marked as version 0.6.0 and are not readable by earlier releases. These files are not written by default; this may be enabled by setting the environment variable USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION to "0.6.0".

  • Ability to record and query API schemas that have been applied to a prim via new Apply method on API schema classes, UsdPrim::GetAppliedSchemas and UsdPrim::HasAPI. Custom API schemas should be updated with these new methods by re-running usdGenSchema.

  • GetUnionedTimeSamples and GetUnionedTimeSamplesInInterval functions for UsdAttribute and UsdAttributeQuery.

  • Ability to offset time for active value clips when using template clip metadata via "templateActiveOffset" entry.

  • UsdUtilsGetDirtyLayers for retrieving dirty layers used by a UsdStage.

  • GetTimeSamplesInInterval functions for UsdGeomXformOp, UsdGeomXformable and UsdGeomXformable::XformQuery.

  • UsdShadeMaterialBindingAPI, which provides an interface for binding materials to prims or collections of prims and computing the final bound material for a prim via "material resolution".

  • Numerous features and documentation for UsdSkel schema.

  • "Save Flattened As" functionality in usdview.

  • Plugin mechanism in usdview that allows users to add custom commands and menus. See new tutorial for more details.

  • Partial support for RenderMan for Maya lights in the Maya plugin.

  • PxrUsdIn.BootstrapMaterialGroup op in Katana plugin for more robustly reading a Looks scope from a .usd file

Changed

  • Build now supports versioned OpenEXR and IlmBase shared libraries. (Issue: #71)
  • Layer identifiers may now include '?' characters. (Issue: #289)
  • UsdStage preserves payload load state when processing instancing changes.
  • UsdListPosition enum values now specify the "append" or "prepend" list as well as a position to provide users with finer-grained control.
  • The various Add... methods in Usd that take a UsdListPosition argument now author entries to the back of the "prepend" list by default if no "explicit" list exists. The old behavior of authoring to the (now deprecated) "added" list can be restored by setting the environment variable USD_AUTHOR_OLD_STYLE_ADD to 1.
  • Standard schema conventions are more strictly-enforced in usdGenSchema.
  • UsdCollectionAPI::AddCollection has been renamed ApplyCollection.
  • Enabled authoring of new UsdShade encoding by default. Authoring the old (now deprecated) encoding can be restored by setting the environment variable USD_SHADE_WRITE_NEW_ENCODING to 0.
  • The "joints" relationship on the UsdSkelSkeleton, UsdSkelPackedJointAnimation, and UsdSkelBinding API schemas is now a token array-valued attribute.
  • UsdRiStatements API schema has been renamed to UsdRiStatementsAPI.
  • sdfdump utility now shows all specs in a layer, even if they have no fields.
  • Various improvements to Hydra reprs and geometry processing.
  • More improvements to Hydra's handling of invalid data.
  • Ongoing work to prepare Hydra to fully consume UsdShade schemas.
  • Refactored GL dependency out of Hd library.
  • Built-in variables in usdview interpreter are now accessed through a separate usdviewApi object to avoid name collisions.
  • Performance improvements in Maya plugin when in Viewport 2.0.
  • Inclusion of info.usd.opArgs in Katana plugin is now parameterized; it will be authored to the location where a "setOpArgsToInfo" attribute exists and is set to 1.

Deprecated

  • The "added" list for list ops in scene description is deprecated in favor of the "prepend" and "append" lists.

Removed

  • GfCamera::ZUp and GfCamera::YUp.
  • UsdSkelJoint schema.

Fixed

  • build_usd.py ensures OpenImageIO build does not pick up OpenEXR from other locations, which could have led to runtime errors. (Issue: #315, Issue: #325)
  • Headers are now installed properly for monolithic builds. (Issue: #277)
  • Original install location will no longer be searched for plugins after relocating builds. (Issue: #363)
  • Fixed thread-safety issue where plugins with the same name but in different locations could be loaded twice. (Issue: #358)
  • Fixed bug where layers that were muted via SdfLayer::AddToMutedLayers before they were first opened could not be unmuted.
  • Fixed bug in usdGenSchema where changing an existing property's type in a schema would not be reflected in the generated code.
  • Fixed bug where a large (> 1460) number of variants in a .usda file would cause a "memory exhausted" error when parsing that file.
  • Fixed broken pread mode for .usdc files.
  • Fixed bug that caused UsdStage::CreateNew to crash on Windows. (Issue: #364)
  • Fixed bug when using a UsdStagePopulationMask with prims beneath instances. (Issue: #312)
  • Fixed bug where setting float-valued attributes to +inf in Python would fail.
  • UsdAttribute::GetTimeSamplesInInterval now properly accounts for layer offsets. (Issue: #352)
  • Internal references or empty asset paths no longer cause errors in UsdUtilsFlattenLayerStack.
  • Fixed bug where UsdGeomPrimvar::GetTimeSamples would miss time samples for indexed primvars.
  • Disabled tiny prim culling in Hydra by default. It can be re-enabled by setting the environment variable HD_ENABLE_TINY_PRIM_CULLING to 1. (Issue: #314)
  • Fixed issues with using non-file-backed asset paths in various utilities and Maya and Katana plugins.
  • Houdini plugin explicitly links against required libraries to avoid runtime errors with Houdini 16.5.
  • Fixed several bugs with point instancing support in Houdini plugin.

[0.8.2] - 2017-12-01

Release 0.8.2 increments the file format version for .usdc files. New .usdc files created in this release will not be readable by earlier releases. See below for more details.

Added

  • SdfCopySpec for copying scene description specs in layers.
  • Usd.GetVersion() for retrieving USD version in Python (Issue: #306)
  • UsdProperty::FlattenTo for copying a UsdProperty's resolved metadata/values.
  • IsTyped and IsConcrete schema queries on UsdSchemaRegistry and UsdSchemaBase.
  • UsdCollectionAPI schema for representing collections of objects. This schema is more expressive than UsdGeomCollectionAPI and can represent large numbers of objects compactly.
  • Utility functions in UsdUtils for determining compact representations of objects for UsdCollectionAPI.
  • UsdUtilsCoalescingDiagnosticDelegate, a Tf diagnostic delegate that provides condensed output for diagnostic messages.
  • UsdUtilsFlattenLayerStack for flattening a UsdStage's layer stack into a single layer, as well as a --flattenLayerStack option to usdcat.
  • Support for named clip sets for clip stitching API in UsdUtils.
  • Schema for cards rendering in UsdGeomModelAPI and imaging support. This provides a lightweight way to collapse model hierarchies into simple geometry for visualization of large scenes.
  • Ability to encode familyType on owners of families of UsdGeomSubsets.
  • Size properties for UsdLuxDiskLight, UsdLuxSphereLight, and UsdLuxRectLight. (Issue: #290)
  • Support for computing bounding boxes for UsdGeomPointInstancer instances using UsdGeomBBoxCache.
  • Support for residual GPU computations in Hydra.
  • Sheer display mode in Hydra, a 'see-through' display mode akin to the mesh being covered in a sheer mesh fabric instead of its regular surface. Implemented as a regular grid stipple pattern of the surface at 20% opacity.
  • Testing framework for usdview.
  • PxrUsdMayaXformStack for representing transform stacks in the Maya plugin.
  • Support for exporting Maya instancers to UsdGeomPointInstancers in the Maya plugin.
  • Support for exporting groups of objects with the same material binding as collections encoded with UsdCollectionAPI in the Maya plugin.
  • Support for vec4 primvars in the Katana plugin.
  • Support for point instancers with varying topology that don't have authored velocities in the Katana plugin.
  • Support for importing collections encoded with new UsdCollectionAPI schema in the Katana plugin.
  • Support for overriding data on a subset of point instancer instances in the Houdini plugin.

Changed

  • Build system now checks that the compiler being used supports 64-bit builds.

  • Tf diagnostic warnings and status messages issued in secondary threads are no longer printed to the terminal.

  • Multiple delegates may now be registered with the Tf diagnostic system.

  • SdfLayer::RemoveInertSceneDescription removes inert overs in variants.

  • When saving a new .usdc file over an existing file, data is first saved to a temporary file then renamed to the destination file. This provides some protection for other processes that were reading the old file.

  • Compression for structural sections in .usdc files is now enabled by default. New .usdc files will be marked as version 0.4.0 instead of 0.3.0 to accommodate a bug fix described below. This means that any new .usdc files created in this release will not be readable by previous USD releases.

    Users can disable the compression functionality by setting the environment variable USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION to "0.0.1". This will ensure new .usdc files will be readable in older releases.

  • UsdStage now uses the composed layer offset instead of its inverse when mapping times in layers to the stage. For example, to shift the time samples in a referenced layer stack forward by 10, users previously authored an offset of -10. Under the new behavior, users need to author an offset of 10 instead.

    Users can revert to the old behavior by setting the environment variable USD_USE_INVERSE_LAYER_OFFSET to 1. This will be deprecated in a future release.

  • UsdStage now allows a prim to be loaded without loading its descendants via a new UsdLoadPolicy argument supplied to UsdStage::Load and LoadAndUnload.

  • UsdInherits, UsdSpecializes, and UsdReferences now map non-root prim paths to the namespace of the edit target.

  • UsdAttribute::GetTimeSamplesInInterval now supports open/finite end points.

  • UsdClipsAPI now authors the dictionary-style clips metadata introduced in release 0.7.6 by default.

  • Schemas may now define fallback values for the majority of metadata fields, including custom metadata fields.

  • Schemas may now have more than 256 tokens defined.

  • usdedit now checks USD_EDITOR environment variable first when determining which editor to use.

  • Ongoing refactoring to move code from hd to hdSt in preparation for material support in Hydra and use of Hydra in other renderer backends.

  • Several performance optimizations in Hydra and UsdImaging.

  • usdview now uses a new JSON-based format for its settings file. Settings files from older releases will be ignored.

  • Several changes to provide better support for Viewport 2.0 in Maya plugin.

  • Enum attributes in Maya now have their integer values exported to USD instead of their descriptive names.

  • Improved attribute transfer on USD Unpack node in Houdini plugin.

  • usdvisible and usdactive attributes in Houdini plugin are now integers instead of strings.

  • Several changes to Houdini plugin for compatibility with Houdini 16.5 and improved HDK usage.

Deprecated

  • UsdGeomCollectionAPI, in favor of new UsdCollectionAPI.

Removed

  • TfDiagnosticNotice. The Tf diagnostic system no longer emits notices; consumers relying on these notices should use diagnostic delegates instead.
  • UsdGeomPointInstancer prototypeDrawMode attribute. Consumers should use the new drawMode attributes on UsdGeomModelAPI instead.

Fixed

  • Issue where users were forced to define certain preprocessor macros in order to build code against USD. In particular, an issue introduced in 0.8.1 caused users who did not #define PXR_ENABLE_PYTHON_SUPPORT to run into odd errors at runtime. (Issue: #304)
  • Bug that caused invalid .usdc files to be written. This affected all files with version 0.3.0; however, this file version was not enabled by default in release 0.8.1 and would only affect users who had explicitly enabled the new version via the USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION environment setting.
  • Precision loss when writing time sample times to .usda files.
  • Performance issue in UsdStage where memory would still be consumed by child prims after their parent prim had been deactivated.
  • Bug that caused UsdStage::ExpandPopulationMask to add invalid paths.
  • Bug that caused UsdObject::GetMetadata to not fill in resolved paths for asset-valued metadata.
  • Bug where layer offsets were incorrectly applied when authoring time samples.
  • Bug in UsdUtilsStageCache that led to crashes during static destruction.
  • Unpickable objects now act as occluders during picking in Hydra.
  • Bug that caused usdview to stop drawing after "Reopen Stage" or "Open Stage".
  • Bug that caused usdview to not play all frames if the step size was changed. (Issue: #321)
  • Several performance and UI issues in usdview.
  • Crash in Maya plugin with nested assemblies and variant set selections. (Issue: #288)
  • Bug in Maya plugin where exporting over a previously-imported layer failed.
  • Bug in Maya plugin that caused lights to flip between directional and non-directional in legacy viewport.
  • Various issues that prevented UsdKatana Python module from being imported. (Issue: #323)
  • Material bindings above point instancer prototypes are now preserved in the Katana plugin.
  • Reworked how USD masters/sources are built in the Katana plugin so that material bindings use the correct Katana paths.
  • Hang in Houdini plugin when importing from variant paths. (Issue: #309)

[0.8.1] - 2017-10-02

Added

  • "append" and "prepend" operations for SdfListOp-valued fields. Scene description layers that contain these new operations will not be readable by earlier USD releases.
  • --validate argument to sdfdump for checking file validity.
  • Support for sub-root references and payloads.
  • Ability to specify amount of data to prefetch when reading a .usdc file via the USDC_MMAP_PREFETCH_KB environment variable.
  • Debugging output that shows memory mapping information for .usdc files. This can be enabled via the USDC_DUMP_PAGE_MAPS environment variable.
  • UsdGeomMotionAPI schema.
  • UsdGeomSubset schema for representing a subset of a geometric prim.
  • Hydra GL support for displacement shaders
  • Initial experimental support for PySide2 in usdview. By default, the build will search for PySide, then PySide2. Alternatively, users may specify PYSIDE_USE_PYSIDE2=TRUE to CMake to force the use of PySide2.
  • Ability to view connections and relationship targets in usdview.
  • Support for camera clipping range in Alembic plugin.
  • Support for array attributes with "RfM Shaders" shading mode in Maya exporter.
  • Support for angularVelocities attribute on point instancers in Katana plugin.
  • Filtered view and improved selection to Tree View panel in Houdini plugin.
  • Support for prototype offsets in point instancer exports in Houdini plugin.

Changed

  • Made Python dependency optional. Python support is enabled by default but may be disabled by specifying PXR_ENABLE_PYTHON_SUPPORT=FALSE to CMake or --no-python to build_usd.py.

  • build_usd.py now requires that users install PyOpenGL manually. (Issue: #264)

  • Replaced addedOrExplicitItems attribute on Sdf.*ListOp in Python with GetAddedOrExplicitItems method.

  • Renamed Append... methods on composition arc APIs (e.g. UsdReferences, UsdInherits) to Add... and added a position argument to support new "append" and "prepend" operations.

    Calling these functions with the default UsdListPositionTempDefault argument will author "add" operations, maintaining the previous behavior. We anticipate removing UsdListPositionTempDefault and replacing it with UsdListPositionFront so that "prepend" operations will be authored by default in 0.8.2. Users may enable this behavior now by setting the USD_AUTHOR_OLD_STYLE_ADD environment variable to false.

  • UsdStage now issues warnings for invalid layers it encounters instead of errors, which cause exceptions in Python.

  • Code generation templates and schema.usda files used by usdGenSchema are now installed as part of the build. Schemas can now use asset paths like "usdGeom/schema.usda" or "usdShade/schema.usda" instead of absolute paths to add installed schemas as sublayers. (Issue: #158, Issue: #211)

  • Improved USD scenegraph instancing to allow more sharing of assets with inherits or specializes arcs. In one large example, this decreased stage load time by ~60%, stage memory usage by ~65%, and time to first image in usdview by ~20%.

  • Several optimizations to reduce I/O operations for .usda and .usdc files.

  • Add support for compressed structural sections in .usdc files. This can significantly decrease file sizes for files that are dominated by prim and property hierarchy; one production shading file decreased in size by ~94%, from 21 MB to 1.3 MB.

    Compressed files are marked as version 0.3.0 and are not readable by earlier USD releases. To help with transition, USD will not write these compressed files by default until a future release. Users may enable this feature now by setting the USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION environment variable to "0.3.0". We plan to add compression for geometry data and time samples in a future release.

  • UsdUtilsExtractExternalReferences now checks for references to external files in property values and metadata.

  • Increased precision for rotations attribute in UsdSkelPackedJointAnimation schema to 32-bit.

  • UsdGeomPrimvar now allows primvar names with arbitrarily-nested namespaces.

  • Sizeable refactor in Hydra to support sprims more like rprims in anticipation of future lights and material support.

  • Hydra no longer syncs rprims that are not visible.

  • Several performance and stability fixes to point instancer handling in Hydra.

  • "Reload All Layers" in usdview will try not to reset the camera or timeline.

  • Numerous other improvements to usdview.

  • The Alembic reader now converts single samples for properties in .abc files to single time samples in USD, instead of default values.

  • Updated required Katana version to Katana 2.5v1.

  • Improved bounds computations for point instancers in Katana plugin

  • Account for motion sample time overrides when computing bounding boxes in Katana plugin.

  • Improved stage cache in Houdini plugin, which can have significantly better performance in some circumstances.

  • Improved handling of instanced USD primitives in Houdini plugin.

Deprecated

  • UsdGeomFaceSetAPI and related API in usdShade and usdLux in favor of new UsdGeomSubset schema.

Removed

  • UsdStage::Close.
  • Camera zUp-related functionality
  • Support for faceVaryingInterpolateBoundary in UsdGeomMesh schema. See faceVaryingLinearInterpolation instead.

Fixed

  • Bug in build_usd.py where specifying --no-embree did the opposite. (Issue: #276)
  • Bug in build_usd.py where specifying --force-all or --force on a Python dependency would cause the script to error out early. (Issue: #263)
  • Race condition between TfType consumers and TfType registry initialization.
  • Composition bug where references with the same prim path and relative asset path would be considered duplicates even when anchoring location differed.
  • Composition bug where payloads on arcs requiring ancestral opinions could result in errors.
  • Change processing bug when removing sublayers specified by search path.
  • Stack overflow crash when reading .usdc files due to excessive recursion.
  • Possible crash in Hydra when using basis curves.
  • Memory leak in Hydra task controller.
  • Build issue for Alembic plugin with HDF5 support disabled when precompiled headers are enabled (which is the default on Windows).
  • Several other bugs in Alembic reader.
  • Performance issue in Katana plugin due to inefficiency in UsdShadeNodeGraph.

[0.8.0] - 2017-07-29

Added

  • Added option to build_usd.py for building monolithic shared library and for building new sample Embree plugin.
  • Added --mask option to usdcat, matching the --mask option in usdview.
  • Added CPU-side external computation support to Hydra.
  • Added Embree backend to serve as an example of how to add renderer plugins to Hydra.
  • Added camera gates to usdview.
  • Added ability to Houdini plugin to set active state via usdactive attribute and to write static data to default time via usdwritestatictopology, usdwritestaticprimvars, and usdwritestaticgeo attributes.
  • Added UsdExportAttributes hda to Houdini plugin for setting primitive and detail attributes which control various USD attributes or metadata.

Changed

  • Restored export of CMake targets from shared library builds.
  • Asset paths in .usda files may now contain any printable character. (Issue: #73)
  • Legacy special behavior for variant sets named "standin" has been disabled by default.
  • Interpolation is now applied to time samples from clips when no sample exists at a specified clip time.
  • Removed deprecated UsdShadePShader schema.
  • Enabled vertex primvar sharing in Hydra. Hydra can now use significantly less GPU memory.
  • Many internal performance improvements to Hydra.
  • usdview HUD now shows the backend renderer plugin used by Hydra
  • Wireframe drawing now ignores opacity.
  • Katana plugin properly interprets schema-supported triangle subdivision rule when meshes are read in and rendered.

Fixed

  • Fixed several issues in build_usd.py related to building dependencies. (Issue: #225, Issue: #230, Issue: #234)
  • Fixed bug where UsdGeomPrimvar::IsIndexed() would not work for attributes with only authored time samples. (Issue: #238)
  • Fixed small platform inconsistencies for Windows in Hydra.
  • Fixed crash in Katana plugin when using point instancers that did not have scales or orientations specified. (Issue: #239)
  • Fixed issue in Houdini plugin where the "w" attribute was not converted to the "angularVelocities" attribute for point instancer prims.

[0.7.6] - 2017-06-30

Added

  • Added build_scripts/build_usd.py for building USD and its dependencies.
  • Added support for building static libraries or a single monolithic shared library. See BUILDING.md for more details.
  • Added support for color spaces to Usd. Color configuration and management system can be specified on a UsdStage (via the stage's root layer), and colorSpace metadata is available on any UsdAttribute.
  • Added clip set functionality to Usd. This provides the ability to specify multiple sets of value clips on the same prim, which allows users to compose different sets of clips together. See UsdClipsAPI for more details.
  • Added initial UsdLux schemas for representing interchangeable lights and related concepts, and UsdRi schemas for Renderman-specific extensions. UsdImaging/Hydra support will be coming in a future release.
  • Added ability to specify smooth triangle subdivision scheme for catmullClark surfaces in UsdGeomMesh and imaging support in Hydra.
  • Added backdrops for node layout description in UsdUI.
  • Added support for sharing immutable primvar buffers to Hydra. This can greatly reduce the memory required on the GPU when displaying typical scenes. It is currently experimental and disabled by default. It can be enabled for testing with the environment variable HD_ENABLE_SHARED_VERTEX_PRIMVAR.
  • Added support for uniform primvars for basis curves in Hydra.
  • Added ability to Alembic plugin to control number of Ogawa streams used for each opened archive via the environment variable USD_ABC_NUM_OGAWA_STREAMS, which defaults to 4.
  • Added Katana plugin support for reading UsdLux lights.
  • Added --camera command line argument to usdview to specify the initial camera to use for viewing.
  • Added display of instance index and (if authored) instance ID to rollover prim info in usdview.
  • Added initial version of Houdini plugin.

Changed

  • Removed unnecessary dependency on OpenImageIO binaries.
  • Removed unnecessary dependency on boost::iostreams.
  • Made HDF5 backend for Alembic plugin optional. HDF5 support is enabled by default but may be disabled by specifying PXR_ENABLE_HDF5_SUPPORT=FALSE to CMake.
  • Metadata fields for value clips feature in UsdStage (e.g. clipAssetPaths, clipTimes, etc.) have been deprecated in favor of the new clips metadata dictionary. Authoring APIs on UsdClipsAPI still write out the deprecated metadata unless the environment variable USD_AUTHOR_LEGACY_CLIPS is set to 0. This will be disabled in a future release.
  • When using value clips, Usd will now report time samples at each time authored in the clip times metadata.
  • Completed support for encoding UsdShade data using UsdAttribute connections. Authoring APIs still write out the old encoding, unless the environment variable USD_SHADE_WRITE_NEW_ENCODING is set to 1. This will be enabled in a future release.
  • Removed support for deprecated UsdShade schemas UsdShadeParameter and UsdShadeInterfaceAttribute, which have been superseded by UsdShadeInput.
  • Removed deprecated UsdRiLookAPI, which has been replaced by UsdRiMaterialAPI.
  • Removed deprecated Hydra scene delegate APIs.
  • Significant refactoring and refinements to allow multiple backends to be plugged in to Hydra.
  • UsdImaging now pushes GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT to avoid any potential state pollution issues when integrating it with other renderers.
  • Improved error handling in Hydra for:
    • Invalid point instancer input
    • Inconsistent displayColor and displayOpacity primvars
    • Direct instances of imageable prims
  • usdview more gracefully handles the situation where it doesn't get a valid GL context (e.g., due to limited resources on the GPU).
  • Improved how edits are handled on assembly nodes in the Maya plugin.
  • Improved UsdGeomPointInstancer support in the Katana plugin:
    • Overhauled methods for computing instance transforms and aggregate bounds.
    • Backward motion and multi-sampled point instancer positions, orientations, and scales are now supported.
    • Removed opArgs attributes that were used for configuring the reader's behavior.
    • More robust primvar transfer to point instancer's Katana locations.
    • Restructured prototype building logic to preserve material bindings when creating prototype prims.
  • Numerous changes and fixes for Mac and Windows ports.

Fixed

  • Fixed issue that caused IDEs and other tools to find headers in the build directories rather than the source directories.
  • Fixed race condition in TfType.
  • Fixed long-standing memory corruption bug in Pcp that surfaced when building on MacOS with XCode 8.3.2.
  • Fixed potential deadlocks in Usd and Pcp due to issues with TBB task group isolation.
  • Fixed bug where UsdStage::Flatten was not preserving attribute connections.
  • Fixed infinite loop on glGetError in the presence of an invalid GL context. (Issue: #198)
  • Fixed build issues that caused the Maya plugin to be unusable after building on MacOS.

[0.7.5] - 2017-05-01

C++ namespaces are now enabled by default. The PXR_ENABLE_NAMESPACES CMake option may be used to disable namespaces if needed.

This release adds initial experimental support for building the USD core libraries on Windows.

Added

  • Added ability to build doxygen documentation. See BUILDING.md for more details.
  • Added support for pre-compiled headers. By default, this is disabled for Linux and Mac builds and enabled for Windows builds. This may be configured with the PXR_ENABLE_PRECOMPILED_HEADERS CMake option.
  • Added many unit tests for core libraries
  • Added UsdStage::Save and UsdStage::SaveSessionLayers
  • Added attribute connection feature that allows consumers to describe connections between an attribute and other prims and properties.
  • Added instance proxy feature that allows consumers to interact with objects on a UsdStage as if scenegraph instancing were not in use while retaining the performance benefits of instancing.
  • Plugins providing Boundable schema types can now register functions for computing extents. This allows code in the USD core to compute extents for prims with types provided by external schemas.
  • Added support for specializes arcs to usdShade.
  • Added UsdUISceneGraphPrimAPI for representing prim display properties.
  • Added HD_DISABLE_TINY_PRIM_CULLING flag for TF_DEBUG to make it easier to turn off tiny prim culling for debugging.
  • Added support for generic metadata to GLSLFX, allowing hardware shaders to pass information to downstream rendering code.
  • Added ability to adjust basic material properties in usdview.
  • Plugins can now register MayaPrimWriter subclasses for exporting Maya nodes to USD prims.
  • Added ability to override default motion data (sample times, current time, shutter open/close) on a per-scope basis in Katana plugin. Users can author these overrides by modifying the global graph state, then decide to use the default motion values with or without these overrides applied.

Changed

  • Removed OpenEXR dependency from core libraries. Note that OpenEXR is still required for imaging.
  • Made Ptex dependency optional. It is only required if Ptex support for imaging is enabled. This is on by default, but can be disabled by specifying PXR_ENABLE_PTEX_SUPPORT=FALSE to CMake.
  • Cleaned up and expanded doxygen documentation:
    • Added documentation for value clips and scenegraph instancing USD features.
    • Enabled XML generation for external tools
    • Fixed invalid tags and formatting in several places
  • UsdTreeIterator has been replaced by UsdPrimRange, which provides container-like semantics in C++ (e.g., the ability to use them in range-based for loops).
  • Removed UsdPrim::GetPayload API
  • UsdRelationship and UsdAttribute will no longer forward target/connection paths that point to objects within instances to objects in master prims. Users can use the new instance proxy functionality to work with these paths instead.
  • Relationships belonging to prims in instances that point to the root of the instance no longer cause errors.
  • Value clip metadata can now be sparsely overridden across composition arcs.
  • Deprecated shading property schemas UsdShadeParameter and UsdShadeInterfaceAttribute. These are replaced by UsdShadeInput, which can represent both input parameters on shaders and interface inputs on node graphs.
  • The --compose command line parameter for usddiff is now --flatten
  • Numerous cleanup changes for Hydra API. In particular:
    • HdEngine::Draw has been retired in favor of HdEngine::Execute.
    • HdSceneDelegate::IsInCollection has been deprecated in favor of render-tag based API.
  • Meshes with subdivisionScheme = none will no longer be bilinearly subdivided.
  • usdview now displays prim hierarchies beneath instances inline in the browser. The "Jump to Master" command has been removed in favor of this new functionality.
  • The default specular response in usdview has been reduced by a factor of 5.
  • The Maya plugin now excludes attributes during import if they are tagged with customData specifying them as generated.
  • Numerous changes for ongoing Mac and Windows port efforts.
  • Changed scoping of built-out point instancer prototypes in Katana plugin so that their hierarchy more closely matches the original USD hierarchy.

Fixed

  • Added workaround to avoid redefined "_XOPEN_SOURCE" and "_POSIX_C_SOURCE" macro warnings due to Python includes on Linux. (Issue: #1)
  • Fixed issue where code would be generated directly into the install location when running cmake, interfering with the use of make's DESTDIR functionality. (Issue: #84)
  • Fixed memory leak when converting Python tuples to C++ GfVec objects.
  • Fixed thread-safety issue with PCP_PRIM_INDEX and PCP_PRIM_INDEX_GRAPHS TF_DEBUG flags. (Issue: #157)
  • Fixed invalid memory access bug in Pcp
  • Fixed memory leak when saving .usdc files.
  • Fixed bug with removing an attribute's last time sample in a .usdc file.
  • Fixed bug where instance prims with locally-defined variants would incorrectly share the same master prim.
  • Reader-writer locks are now used for various registry to improve performance.
  • Improved speed of adding an empty sublayer to an opened stage. In one large test case, time to add an empty sublayer went from ~30 seconds to ~5 seconds.
  • Fixed issues with opening .usda files and files larger than 4GB on Windows. (Issue: #189)
  • Fixed backwards compatibility issues with UsdShadeInput and UsdShadeConnectableAPI.
  • Memory footprint has been significantly reduced in Hydra's adjacency tables for subdivs that contain vertices of high valence.
  • Fixed crash in imaging due to invalid textures.
  • Fixed shadow banding artifacts when using vertex color with basis curves.
  • Fixed buffer overrun when using GPU smooth normals.
  • Fixed issue in Maya plugin where multiple assemblies that reference the same file might all be affected by the edits of one particular assembly when viewing them via a proxy.
  • Fixed issue in Maya plugin where path resolution was being done by the plugin itself rather than deferring to Usd and Sdf.

[0.7.4] - 2017-03-03

USD now supports C++ namespaces. They are disabled by default in this release to ease transition, but we anticipate enabling them by default in the next release.

Specify the PXR_ENABLE_NAMESPACES CMake option to enable namespaces. See documentation in BUILDING.md for more details.

Added

  • Added GfHalf type to represent half-precision numeric values. This type is currently an alias to the "half" type supplied by the ilmbase library USD is built against. This will be changed in an upcoming release to point to a version of "half" that is included in the USD codebase, which will allow us to remove the USD core's dependency on ilmbase.
  • Added UsdShadeInput class to represent shader or NodeGraph input. These are encoded as attributes in the "inputs:" namespace. By default, this encoding will not be written out via UsdShadeConnectableAPI unless the 'USD_SHADE_WRITE_NEW_ENCODING' environment variable is set.
  • Added "Composition" tab to usdview that allows users to inspect the composition structure of a selected prim.
  • Added tests for Hdx. These tests are currently not run as part of the unit test suite, but are being included for users to try on their platforms and to serve as example code.
  • Added icons for the USD assemblies in Maya.
  • Added initial implementation of Katana plugin for reading UsdGeomPointInstancer locations.

Changed

  • CMake module now additionally looks for the pyside-uic binary under the name pyside-uic-2.7 to accommodate package managers on OSX.
  • Removed GLUT dependency.
  • Removed double-conversion dependency.
  • Modified all uses of "half" type from ilmbase to use new GfHalf type.
  • Renamed UsdShadeSubgraph to UsdShadeNodeGraph to conform with final MaterialX terminology.
  • Numerous changes for in-progress work on refactoring Hydra to support render delegates.
  • Updated UI in usdview to display legends for text coloring in collapsible panes and to include more information.
  • The import UI in the Maya plugin now enables reading of anim data by default.
  • Updated API in Maya plugin that referred to "look" to "material".
  • Numerous changes for ongoing Mac and Windows porting efforts.

Fixed

  • Fixed several issues when building with C++ namespaces enabled.
  • Fixed bug with selection highlighting for instanced prims in usdview.
  • Fixed crash that occurred when an invalid color primvar was encountered while using usdview's "simple" renderer.
  • Fixed issue with TF_REGISTRY_DEFINE* macros that caused build failures for the Maya plugin on OSX. (Issue: #162)

[0.7.3] - 2017-02-05

Added

  • Added support for RelWithDebInfo and MinSizeRel release types.
  • Added initial support for C++ namespaces. This feature is currently experimental but can be enabled by specifying the PXR_ENABLE_NAMESPACES option to CMake. See documentation in BUILDING.md for more details.
  • Added population masking to UsdStage.
    • Consumers can specify what parts of a stage to populate and use to reduce resources used by the stage.
    • usdview now has a --mask option allowing users to view just the specified portion of a stage.
  • Added UsdPrim API for collecting relationship targets authored in a given prim subtree.
  • Added UsdShade API to allow creating and connecting outputs on subgraphs and shaders instead of terminals.
  • Added support for bool shader parameters in Hydra. (Issue: #104)
  • Added ability to independently toggle display of geometry with purpose=proxy in usdview.
  • Added initial set of unit tests for pxrUsd library in the Maya plugin.
  • The Maya plugin now supports multi-sampling of frames during export.
  • Attributes in Maya may now be tagged to be converted from double to single precision during export.
  • Alembic tagging for attributes in Maya are now respected during export. This includes support for primvars and custom prefixes.
  • Added support for playing back animation in assemblies via Hydra when the Playback representation is activated in Maya.
  • Added support for reading material references in Katana plugin.

Changed

  • CMake will no longer look for X11 on OSX. (Issue: #72)
  • The build system now uses relative paths for baking in plugin search paths, allowing for relocatable builds as long as all build products are moved together as one unit.
  • Removed hard-coded /usr/local/share directory from plugin search path.
  • Optimized creation of prim specs in Sdf. Creating 100k prim specs previously took 190s, it now takes 0.9s.
  • SdfPath::GetVariantSelection now returns a variant selection only for variant selection paths.
  • UsdStage no longer issues an error if requested to unload a path that does not identify an unloadable object.
  • Changed API on UsdInherits, UsdReferences, UsdRelationship, UsdSpecializes, UsdVariantSet, and UsdVariantSets for clarity.
  • Hydra GPU compute settings have been consolidated under a single HD_ENABLE_GPU_COMPUTE environment setting which is enabled by default if the OpenSubdiv being used supports the GLSL compute kernel.
  • Numerous changes for in-progress work on refactoring Hydra to support render delegates.
  • Changed 'Display' menu in usdview to 'Display Purposes...' and menu items to match USD terminology.
  • Updated required Maya version to Maya 2016 EXT2 SP2.
  • Normals are now emitted by default when exporting polygonal meshes in Maya.
  • Katana plugin now supports deactivating prims directly on UsdStage for improved efficiency.
  • Continued work on deprecating UsdShadeLook in favor of UsdShadeMaterial.
  • Numerous changes for ongoing Mac and Windows porting efforts.
  • Changed coding style to use symbol-like logical operators instead of the keyword-like form (e.g., '&&' instead of 'and').
  • Various cleanup changes to fix comments, compiler warnings, and to remove unused/old code.

Fixed

  • Fixed composition bug where nested variants with the same name were composed incorrectly.
  • Fixed composition bug where variant selections from classes were not being applied in certain cases. (Issue: #156)
  • Fixed .usda file output to write out floating point values using the correct precision and to use exponential representation for values greater than 1e15 (instead of 1e21) to avoid parsing issues.
  • Fixed bug where negative double values that could be represented as floats were not stored optimally in .usdc files.
  • Fixed bug where UsdPrim::Has/GetProperty would return incorrect results.
  • Fixed bug where UsdObject::GetMetadata would return incorrect results for dictionary-valued metadata in certain cases.
  • Fixed bug where reading certain .usdc files while forcing single-threaded processing via PXR_WORK_THREAD_LIMIT would lead to a stack overflow.
  • Fixed missing garbage collection for shader and texture resource registries in Hydra.
  • Several fixes for nested instancing support in Hydra (native USD instances containing other instances or point instancers, etc.)
  • Fixed "Jump to Bound Material" in "Pick Models" selection mode in usdview.
  • Fixed bug where USD assemblies would not be drawn in Maya under VP2.0.
  • Workaround for performance issue when drawing proxies in Katana plugin.
  • Fixed issue causing USD Alembic plugin to fail to build with Alembic 1.7. (Issue: #106)
  • Various other bug fixes and performance improvements.

[0.7.2] - 2016-12-02

Added

  • Added ability to apply a custom prefix to shared library names by specifying the PXR_LIB_PREFIX option to CMake.
  • Added ability to disable tests by using the PXR_BUILD_TESTS option with CMake.
  • usddiff can now diff two directories containing USD files.
  • Value clips on a prim may now be specified using 'template' clip metadata. This is a more compact representation for simple cases where each value clip corresponds to a single time code.
  • Better support for non-file-backed asset resolution
    • Made ArDefaultResolver public, so that subclasses can layer behavior on top of it.
    • Added ArResolver API for retrieving files from data store when needed.
  • Initial version of UsdGeomPointInstancer schema and preliminary support in usdImaging.
  • pxrUsdReferenceAssemblies in Maya can now import animation from a USD scene. See http://openusd.org/docs/Maya-USD-Plugins.html#MayaUSDPlugins-ImportingasAssemblies for details.
  • Core USD metadata (e.g. hidden, instanceable, kind) now roundtrips through Maya, stored as "USD_XXX" attributes on corresponding Maya nodes.

Changed

  • Removed dependency on Qt. Note that PySide is still a dependency for usdview.
    • Removed imaging/glfq library as part of this work.
  • Modified variant behavior in composition:
    • Variants may now be nested within other variants in scene description. Nested variants may be authored by using nested UsdEditContext objects returned by UsdVariantSet::GetVariantEditContext.
    • Weaker variants may now introduce variant selections that affect stronger variants. Previously, these selections would be ignored and the variant fallbacks would be used instead.
  • Optimized .usdc file format performance in certain cases:
    • Output is buffered in memory to improve write times for layers containing many nested dictionaries. In one such example, wall-clock time improved by ~64% and system time improved by 89%.
    • Time samples are now written out grouped by time to improve read performance for frame-by-frame access patterns.
  • Several optimizations to improve USD scenegraph authoring and composition speed and reduce memory consumption. In some use cases, we observed:
    • ~5-7x less memory consumed by Pcp dependency tracking structures
    • ~40% less time spent to author large stages
  • Exporting USD from the Maya Export window now produces binary .usd files by default instead of .usda files.

Fixed

  • Fixed bug where edits to a layer opened in Maya would persist when reopening that layer in a new scene.
  • Fixed issue where exporting USD from the Maya Export window would produce files ending with ".usda", even if a different format was specified. The exporter should now respect any extension that is entered, so long as the "Default file extensions" option is turned off.
  • Fixed several issues with example plugins being improperly built, making them unusuable, and missing functionality.
  • Various other bug fixes and performance improvements.

[0.7.1] - 2016-09-21

Added

  • UsdMaterial schema for shading, intended to replace UsdLook. Also added support for this new schema to Hydra.
  • Initial version of UsdUI schema library, intended for encoding GUI information on USD prims.
  • Parallel teardown of some data members in UsdStage, speeding up overall teardown by ~2x.
  • Support for packed vertex normals to Hydra, reducing GPU memory consumption by 20-30% in some cases.
  • Ability to compare two composed stages to usddiff by specifying the "--compose" or "-c" options.
  • Support for soft-selection for collapsed USD assemblies in Maya.
  • Support for exporting color sets and UV sets as indexed primvars from Maya.

Changed

  • Refactored Hydra libraries to move higher-level concepts out of the core hd library and into hdx.
  • Removed use of opensubdiv3/ include path from imaging code in favor of standard opensubdiv/ include.
  • Modified UsdStage to automatically load newly-discovered payloads if their nearest ancestor's payload was also loaded. For example, consumers will no longer have to explicitly call UsdStage::Load to ensure payloads are loaded when switching variants on a prim, so long as their nearest ancestor is also loaded.
  • Refactoring and other changes to help with Mac and Windows ports.
  • Updated doxygen and other documentation.

Fixed

  • Fixed issue that caused Alembic plugin (usdAbc) to be misconfigured at build time, which required users to manually update its plugInfo.json and set an environment variable at runtime to make it work. This plugin is now installed to $PREFIX/plugin/usd/ and requires no additional steps to use once it has been built.

  • Fixed issue with .usdc files that resulted in corrupted files on Windows. The file structure was changed, so the .usdc version has been bumped from 0.0.1 to 0.1.0. USD will continue to write 0.0.1 files by default, but will begin writing 0.1.0 files in the near future.

    Users may choose to write files with the new version immediately by setting the environment variable USD_WRITE_NEW_USDC_FILES_AS_VERSION to "0.1.0".

    Note that 0.0.1 files are still readable using this release, except for those that have been generated on Windows using 0.7.0. Early testers on Windows will need to regenerate those files with this release.

  • Fixed issue that caused usdGenSchema to generate files that could not be compiled.

  • Added a workaround for TBB-related issue in Maya that caused hangs when using the USD Maya plugin. This can be enabled at build time by specifying the PXR_MAYA_TBB_BUG_WORKAROUND option to CMake.

  • Various other bug fixes and performance improvements.

[0.7.0] - 2016-08-01

Initial release