OpenUSD now helps Vulkan | CG Channel

Pixar’s commonplace Kitchen Set scene rendering contained in the default OpenUSD HdStorm renderer on Home windows (left) and Android (proper) utilizing the OpenUSD Vulkan backend.

Common Scene Description now formally supports the Vulkan graphics API, together with in its Hydra rendering framework and default HdStorm renderer.

The experimental HgiVulkan backend is meant to supply a higher-performing different to OpenGL on Home windows and Linux, and to allow builders to help Android gadgets.

OpenUSD: the spine of many present VFX and video games pipelines
Developed in-house at Pixar, and open-sourced in 2016, the Common Scene Description has turn out to be a key a part of VFX, animation and sport growth pipelines.

The framework and its USD file format, which permits high-level scene knowledge to be exchanged between software program instruments, is now supported by almost every major DCC application.

Improvement of USD – formally renamed OpenUSD final yr – is now overseen by cross-industry physique the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD).

Vulkan now supported through Hydra’s HgiVulkan backend
Initially, HdStorm, the default renderer in OpenUSD’s Hydra rendering framework, solely supported the ageing OpenGL API for GPU computing, together with GPU rendering.

To develop help to newer APIs, later updates launched an abstraction layer, the Hydra Graphics Interface (Hgi).

Hgi is already used within the HgiMetal backend to help Apple’s Metallic API on macOS and iOS, and is now getting used within the HgiVulkan backend to help Vulkan, OpenGl’s successor, on Home windows and Linux.

HgiVulkan has been an experimental characteristic for a while – it’s talked about within the changelog way back to 2021 – however has now been introduced formally by Khronos Group, which oversees the Vulkan commonplace.

OpenUSD 24.08, the newest model of OpenUSD, additionally contains a number of key enhancements to HgiVulkan, together with help for materials and lookdev knowledge commonplace MaterialX.

Supposed to make Vulkan a ‘extra compelling different’ for builders
In response to Khronos Group’s blog post, the work is a part of a collaborative effort between AOUSD members Pixar, Autodesk and Adobe to carry HgiVulkan to characteristic parity with the prevailing OpenGL and Metallic backends.

The corporations finally intention to realize improved efficiency over the OpenGL backend, making Vulkan a “extra compelling choice for builders” on Home windows and Linux.

Vulkan shouldn’t be but broadly supported in DCC apps, regardless of notable exceptions like Houdini, the place the brand new Vulkan viewport formally changed the previous OpenGL viewport in Houdini 20.5 this yr.

Vulkan help in OpenUSD additionally extends to Android, making it doable for builders to “create high-performance 3D functions for a wider vary of gadgets”.

Nonetheless some identified limitations
Help for Vulkan inside OpenUSD remains to be formally experimental, and in line with the weblog publish, there are nonetheless “identified limitations and efficiency points which are being addressed”.

Specifically, unit testing shouldn’t be but accessible on Home windows, though the “majority” of current imaging unit assessments in OpenUSD go when run with the HgiVulkan backend on Linux.

License and system necessities
Supply code for OpenUSD is obtainable below a modified model of the Apache 2.0 license, now often known as the Tomorrow Open Source Technology (TOST) license.

It may be compiled on Linux, Home windows and macOS.

Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). In addition to having the ability to touch upon tales, followers of our social media accounts can see movies we don’t publish on the location itself, together with making-ofs for the newest VFX films, animations, video games cinematics and movement graphics tasks.