USD Composer 2023.1 Beta - Release Highlights

Release Date: June 2023

USD Composer 2023.1 marks the first release of the Foundation Apps. Omniverse is a platform built to allow you to easily extend the kit platform and build any experience you desire. The Foundation applications are starting points based on specific workflows to provide a great starting point into the Omniverse Ecosystem. In the Foundation Apps you can expect tested and extendable Extensions that we’ll continue to improve, document, and allow for easy entry points to create your own custom Omniverse application.

With USD Composer 2023.1 we focused on a few core updates: USD/Python upgrade, USD validation tools, Configurator workflows, XR, and improved real time rendering.

Jump below for highlights and the full release notes!

New Configurator Workflows

We’ve built a suite of core Extensions, workflows, and USD operations that will allow you to quickly generate Configurators for a variety of purposes. From retail to industrial design, you’ll be able to generate a series of variants that can be manipulated from ActionGraphs, Extensions, and a new no code UI interface.

Variant Presenter and Editor

A set of tools designed specifically to allow you both generate complex USD variants, but also easily review. Further, we’ve improved USD variant support from other tools that export USD.

The new Variant Editor is a robust workflow for generating a large amount of variants quickly. Further, this will allow you to edit and adjust variants made in external applications on USD assets.

With the Variant presenter, you can group and review variants from both generated directly from USD. These groupings can help to easily lock or unlock items you want your customers to be able to review and approve.

Action graph nodes for Variants

Now you’ve generated your variants, let’s make sure you can accurately manipulate and adjust USD variants directly with a brand new set of action graph nodes & workflows.

No Code UI

New No Code UI makes it extremely easy to generate in-viewport UI that can call both Python, ActionGraph and other actions. These are stored in USD for easy transport around the Omniverse platform.

Rendering Improvements

A new denoiser and a greatly improved MDL distiller allows for a greater parity between RTX Realtime and RTX Interactive. Now you can run at high fidelity and high speed with RTX Realtime to quickly visualize your asset.

UV Generation with Scene Optimizer

Make sure your asset has the perfect material application with UV generation provided by the Scene Optimizer.

Configurator Sample

Put it all together in our in depth Configurator sample available in the examples browser. This sample shows you how to take an asset filled with variants and generate a no code UI with ActionGraph.

USD Ecosystem Updates

A core part of the Omniverse ecosystem is USD (Universal Scene Description). We’re dedicated to expanding and interacting with the USD community and providing options on the Omniverse Platform to generate USD compliant assets and delightful stages.

With this update, we’ve upgraded to a new version of Python and USD and provided tools to continue to allow for transporting content in USD across multiple platforms.

Python update/USD update

We’ve updated Python to version 3.10 and USD to version 22.11. With both these updates we’re continuing on the path to keeping the Omniverse Platform marching forward with the progress of the greater ecosystem.

Asset Validator

A crucial component of a healthy ecosystem are healthy assets. With the new Asset Validator, you can quickly and easily review and fix all of your assets. Generate your own custom rules or use the many rules already available.

One crucial component of the USD upgrade was compliance with new standards. It is highly recommended you run the asset validator on your existing assets to bring them up to the current standards.

USD Preview Surface Improvements

A huge bonus to the latest release is the ability to directly edit USD Preview surfaces in the Material Editor. Further, we have also added the ability to bake a USD Preview surface from an MDL.

Metrics Assembler

Ever worry about your asset unit type being mismatched? We’ve got a solution with the Metrics assembler. Now, when you drag in an asset with a units type differing from your stage, we’ll automatically correct the scale and orientation to make sure it’s world scale matches.

Omniverse in XR

We’ve deprecated the Omniverse Create XR application and moved all of that functionality to the core Omniverse Platform. You can now launch XR directly in USD Composer!

Take your existing USD stages and immediately jump into them with a supported VR headset, or stream your viewport to an iPhone or iPad. With the combined power of USD and Raytracing, your data needs less prep and requires no baking to see it immersively with photorealistic lighting and materials. This initial release in Beta will be focused on initial integration. Follow closely for new updates this year!

• SteamVR integration of VR

• Improved Tablet AR connection experience

• Better compositing of shadows in AR mode

Sim Ready Assets and New Content

We’re dedicated to providing standards and examples of content we feel best exemplifies a great USD asset. We’re providing a few new content packs and Extensions to help you compile Stages and content that we truly feel is simulation ready.

SimReady Asset Browser

With the new SimReady Asset Browser, we’re providing assets that are built with proper scale, physics, and materials to work directly in simulation. These are built to exacting standards that we’ll be communicating and evangelizing to the greater USD community in the coming releases.

This first release comes packed with over 1,000 assets that you are free to use in the Omniverse Ecosystem. We have many more assets on the way and they’ll automatically update in your SimReady Browser!

Automotive Asset Pack

A great pack of automotive assets that will give you a great starting point to setup any automotive design inside the Kit platform. This includes:

• A set of high quality dome maps and stages provided by CGBackgrounds.

• A new adaptable Domelight MDL

• Automotive Uber Material

• A full pack of automotive materials

• New triplanar and box mapping MDL nodes

• The Koenigsegg Ragnorak example stage.

Collaboration Improvements

We continue to believe that the future of the digital workspace is a truly collaborative environment. As our workflows move more and more to the cloud we’ve doubled down on providing workflows that can be truly world wide, realtime, and remarkably effective.

Live Collaboration is now enabled for reference and payload prims directly. Users can receive a live session in USD Composer on any USD file that is loaded as a reference or payload. This is a much more articulated and powerful way to iterate on specific assets as it allows for the USD Layers panel to be mainly used for aggregation and layout of assets, while the assets themselves can be handled with Live Prims as receive only assets.

Here’s some of the key highlights:

• Quick join live sessions

• Share and join session by link

• Offscreen pointers for users

• Follow user

• Live reference/payload prims

• Auto reload for prims and layers

• Consistent color allocations for user selections

• UI improvements in the stage view and viewport camera lists that indicate other collaborators.

• Updated and optimized name labels / name icons

Animation Improvements

We’re continuing to improve the core animation runtimes and abilities for the Omniverse platform. With this release, we’ve added additional navigation methods with the new Navigation Mesh feature and a full Stage Recorder.

Navigation Mesh

Animated characters can now autonomously move around environments using the new Navigation Mesh (‘Nav Mesh’) feature. The Nav Mesh is a pre-computed mesh that represents the traversable area for an agent, and unlocks the ability to build smart agents for simulation.

Stage Recorder

The Stage Recorder offers a robust method for capturing all simulation and live session movement for later playback from disk or layer. Sessions can be recorded to disk or layer and allows users to record user input and specific time segments from the stage.

Physics Improvements

In this release we have created a number of new Action Graph Nodes that allow for the creation of physics driven behaviors without having to program them in python. Check out the new OmniGraph nodes below.

CharacterController Node

A CharacterController node that takes movement commands as input and directs a first or third person avatar through the virtual world while staying on the ground, climbing ramps and stairs and sliding along walls.

OnTrigger Node

An OnTrigger node that can execute other nodes when a physics collider has entered or left a trigger volume.

Immediate Mode Collision Query nodes

Immediate Mode Collision Query nodes that can compute overlap, bounds, interpenetration, intersecting faces, or contact points for a set of input prims.

Contact Event nodes

Contact Event nodes that report contact points found between prims during simulation.

The use of each of these new nodes has been demonstrated in a number of new samples found in Window -> Simulation -> Demo Scenes.

We have improved the performance and behavior of the Zero Gravity feature, which allows users to translate, rotate or drop objects in place using collision detection during stage authoring. The Physics Vehicle wizard, which allows the creation of a driveable physics powered wheeled vehicle, has been improved. It can now work with pre-authored prim hierarchy for the car chassis and wheels, no longer requiring the hierarchy to be created from scratch.

Full Release notes

View the full release notes for even more details!