Usd (Universal scene description) Crash course for VFX.
I've been working with Usd for the last 3 years now and one thing I can say is that it is hard to learn and hard to master.
I have been involved in multiple pipelines in multiple VFX studios and I've seen how hard it is to jump into Usd because it always seems like there is so much to learn.
So my goal is to make Usd a little more accessible for everyone and to give you the tools so that you can work in a company and know what you should be looking for !
This course won't teach you a specific aspect of working with Usd but I will be trying to give more context to the ecosystem that Usd really is. If anything, I can say that artists don't need to understand every aspect of Usd but at least learn how to navigate through it, once you get there you will see that Usd is not that scary as long as you understand its logic.
So don't expect any fancy render, workflow or even me telling you what you will find in your next studio because that's not my goal.
The strength of Usd is to give freedom in how you want to make your scene and teaching you one way to do it wouldn't make sense, because you might see something different anyway. Instead, I will try to teach you what to expect and how to read Usd because it is a language.
Good thing is, once you know a language you can read all the books and that's my goal here.
Now obviously I made the course based on my experience and I try to share that experience as much as I can so you head into the right direction.
This course is for single user usage only, If you are a studio and want a licence for the whole company with the video files you can contact me at cabrolbertrand@gmail.com and I will give you a cotation.
Here is my linkedin if you want to know what is my experience : https://www.linkedin.com/in/bertrand-cabrol-7669b1114/
DISCLAIMER
Because every good stories starts with a disclaimer.
I didn't make Usd and I never worked at Pixar, I learned it through pain experience and with the help of very smart people in the industry.
I am telling you this because all of this is based on my own understanding of the concepts and what I've seen in my work.
Also also, I am trying to "vulgarize" Usd, therefore some of my explanations might be a little simple or lacking but that's also by design.
BUT !
COUNTER - DISCLAIMER
What a rollercoaster.
I have been working with Usd for a while now and I am more on the workflow/technical side of things so although I might be wrong on some stuff I must not be completely off if it worked for me so I am not worried.
I provide the first course for free so you can check if it's for you or not though (Be advised, it's probably the most difficult one) !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q98NdisGjpo
Practical Infos :
You will see that those videos uses Houdini, you don't need Houdini and you don't necessarely need to know Houdini to follow this course. (Although some understanding of the UI would help)
I am explaining things, not telling you to do things and I am not teaching Houdini, I am teaching Usd, I use Houdini because I find the framework nice to present Usd.
What you get :
- About 3 hours of courses teaching you most of the basic concepts you will need to navigate Usd.
What you don't get :
- Scene file.
Reasoning is simple, it's not that interesting, I really use Houdini as a Framework so it wouldn't make sense.
Pixar provided much better Usd scene to work with if you need, you can look for it on google.
Video Content :
- Stage and Layers :
- Exporting
- Root and sublayers
- Overides
- Opinions
- Usd and shot work
- Usd and asset work
- Composition
- Primitives :
- What are they ?
- Specifier
- Over vs def
- Why overrides
- Primitive type
- Primitives are their attributes
- One type to rule them all.
- Going through the most common primitive types.
- Kind
- Component & sub-component
- Assembly
- What for ?
- Draw mode
- Working with primitives :
- Properties
- Attributes
- Attribute specificities
- Namespace
- Value type
- Metadatas
- Asset info
- Custom data
- Primitives are their attributes
- Default what now ?
- Reading usd attributes
- Custom properties
- Animated attributes
- Usd is just attributes
- Relationship
- Sublayers vs references :
- Sublayer
- References
- When ?
- References again..
- Saving a reference.
- Referenception ?
- Payload for the win.
- Multi referencing.
- References everywhere.
- One format to rule them all.
- Variants :
- Self-contained
- Variant sets
- Multiple variants
- Materials for all
- Better structure.
- Models AND lookdev
- Sets on root
- Models and payloads
- Variants and optimisation
- Getting tricky..
- Nested variants
- Messted variants
- Using variants capabilities
- Instancers ! :
- Why ?
- Native instancing
- Instanceable
- Implicit prototypes
- Always Instanceable?
- Multi referencing.
- Less is better, sometimes.
- Point instancers :
- Speeeeed!
- Relationships matters.
- Attributes too !
- When should you use them ?
- Testing is key.
- Instanceabled too.
- To sparse or not to sparse.
- Bonus :
- Purpose
- Proxy
- Render
- Guide
- Collections
- Inherits
- Inherits paths.
- Class prim.
- Specific inherits
- Inherits and instanceable.
- Purpose
As you can see that's a lot but I tried really hard to not make the videos longer than necessary.
What I am saying is that it will be intense....
Skill Level required :
I really tried to make this course as accessible as possible for everyone but Usd is a complicated subject and also I can't explain the logic of it without going a little bit into details so it's still quite technical..
There is more to Usd and I might do a more advanced course but this is everything you need to get going.
Although it's important to know that Usd is used for "Scene description" so it's really more targeted to people that work in the Vfx/Feature industry or are trying to get into the industry. It's a very specific technologie that would be very overkill for hobbyist.
3 hours to give you the tools necessary to understand and work with Usd (Universal scene description).