3D: From Standardized to Scaled

3D: From Standardized to Scaled‍

The creation process for 3D content, whether that be movies or games, is complex. Entertainment pipelines can consist of dozens of studios, teams, people, and technology coming together in a unified way to produce a single comprehensive experience. One of the largest issues within these pipelines is the sharing and integration of data across teams and individuals.

This week, we want to explore Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD), a file format and framework that has been increasingly adopted by some of the largest companies in the world, and infer what this format can mean for the future of digital worlds.

‍What Is OpenUSD?

‍Pixar, one of the most critically and commercially successful animation studios in the world, developed and published OpenUSD as open source software in 2016 with the intention of making it an industry-wide standard. The hope was that new industry tools and software would support OpenUSD out of the box so that Pixar would be able to easily integrate their existing technology stack (TheNewStack). Visual effects (VFX) and animation pipelines are highly complex with many moving parts. These processes typically include a multitude of different people using different software and different file formats with the goal of having one unified outcome. At a high level, a VFX pipeline could include the following:

• 3D Modeling: Creating the shape of the character
• Rigging: Giving the character “bones” to enable movement
• Animation: Moving the “bones” to simulate movement
• Textures, Colors, & Shaders: Adding surface detail and visual attributes

While 3D modeling and rigging can be done in 3ds Max, you could also choose to create more organic assets where ZBrush could be your preferred software. If you want more explosions and unique effects Houdini may be a better fit. When you want to add textures and color to your objects, you may use a software like Substance Painter. Once you have your final assets, you can use Maya to begin the animation process. And once you are ready to bring all of this together and make final adjustments, Foundry Nuke is probably your best solution.

Each of these tools is unique in the way that they generate, store, and transmit data, which makes it difficult to share, access, or read the data in any other application. To solve this problem, OpenUSD was created as the “first publicly available software that addresses the need to robustly and scalably interchange and augment arbitrary 3D scenes that may be composed from many elemental assets” (OpenUSD).

OpenUSD was originally created by Pixar to help overcome the compatibility problems inherent in VFX creation, including the need for a common language among tools, the ability to collaborate on the same assets, and the ability to iterate quickly on assets. After being open sourced in 2016, the GitHub has received over 6.5k stars and it has been supported by a large number of software including some of the names above. Today, companies like NVIDIA, Adobe, Apple, Sony, EPIC Games, and Meta are all influential members guiding the development of OpenUSD.

‍Historical Examples Of Standardization

‍Historically, standardization has unlocked meaningful growth in industries by reducing friction for users and developers and bolstering key factors that impact network effects.

‍Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP): TCP/IP is a suite of communication protocols used to connect network devices on the internet. You can think of them as a set of rules that all computers agree to follow so that they can access, send, and receive data (TechTarget). Prior to TCP/IP, networks were largely isolated with their own rules for communication making it difficult to talk to each other. This standard set of rules enabled the widescale adoption of the internet by enhancing:

• Collaboration: Enabled networks to talk to each other increasing network usage and improving network effects
• Reliability: Ensured data was not lost along the way enabling more use cases and better user experiences
• Scalability: Required little central management and works with large amounts of data allowing for adoption at scale
• Accessibility / Ease of Use: Provided as a free and open standard reducing friction, encouraging adoption, and bolstering network effects

Structured Query Language (SQL): Another example of standardization is SQL which is a query language or a way of interacting with large databases. SQL can be thought of as a set of rules that developers agree to follow to help access, retrieve, sort, and update information within these databases in a standardized way. Similarly to TCP/IP, SQL accelerated the use of data by enhancing:

• Collaboration: Enabled data storage to be compatible with other systems facilitating collaboration between software, companies, and datasets
• Reliability: Led to frameworks like ACID which focus on making sure databases are durable, non-duplicative, consistent, and secure
• Scalable: Function at scale remaining efficient with even large amounts of data
• Accessibility / Ease of Use: Easily read and implemented with English-like syntax encouraging broad adoption

What Does This Mean For 3D Content & Digital Worlds?

‍We have already begun to see the benefit of standardization of 3D via OpenUSD, and it has many parallels to previous forms of standardization:

• Collaboration: Enables transfer of assets across teams, software, and projects improving efficiency and creative opportunities
• Reliability: Enables more individuals to work on a single asset without fear of conflicts
• Scalable: Highly optimized with the intention of reducing latency to enable rapid iterations
• Accessibility / Ease of Use: Provided as a free and open standard, reducing friction and encouraging adoption

Each of these factors positively impacts network effects and the adoption and proliferation of 3D technology. This could manifest in many ways including:

• Additional infrastructure: Other businesses and frameworks could be built on top of this framework to enhance its capabilities similar to how Databricks built on top of SQL to extend its capabilities across large datasets
• AI Data Completeness: The broader adoption of OpenUSD is likely to benefit AI training by providing comprehensive and well-structured data sets for 3D assets
• Availability of Assets: As assets become more standardized, asset reuse and collaboration will become easier, reducing development costs

The benefits of standardization, from more rapid collaboration to the broad accessibility of assets, is likely to increase the quantity and quality of assets available in digital worlds. This makes it easier to share, use, analyze, and manipulate assets in creative ways. However, within entertainment, OpenUSD is not the only form of standardization starting to emerge. Some others include:

• Identification: Standardization of identity verification will have large impacts on children's safety for example, a problem k-ID (a Konvoy portfolio company) is attempting to solve
• Porting: Standardization of porting experience across XR devices supported by OpenXR will help increase the breadth of XR experiences available and reduce the time spent on technical hurdles
• AI Prompting: Standardization of prompts through projects like OpenPrompt could help make AI interactions more reliable and consistent

This type of standardization is taking place all around us, in many industries, and we are excited to see what companies will build on top of these new standards.

‍Takeaway: OpenUSD has the ability to revolutionize 3D content creation by enabling interoperability across teams, tools, and companies. Like TCP/IP and SQL, OpenUSD introduces a common standard that reduces friction, increases reliability, and enhances scalability and accessibility. Its open-source nature allows widespread adoption and innovation, potentially unlocking a new layer of innovations in the space. For gaming and VFX, this could mean faster production cycles, richer AI training data, and broader reusability of assets across platforms.