Asset Modularity and Instancing

This module, Asset Modularity and Instancing, we will explore the principles and practical workflows of asset modularity, instancing, and content reuse in OpenUSD. Through guided exercises and real-world scenarios, participants will build modular asset hierarchies using OpenUSD’s model kinds and composition arcs and leverage scenegraph instances and point instancers to build efficient and scalable 3D scenes.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the concept of instancing in OpenUSD and its relationship to the composition system

• Implement instanceable prims and understand the creation of implicit prototypes

• Create and manage point instancing for efficient asset scattering

• Design nested instancing hierarchies for complex scene structures

• Utilize variant sets to implement geometric and material variations in instanceable assets

• Analyze and optimize scene performance using instancing techniques

• Apply instancing strategies to real-world production scenarios, such as creating large-scale environments

Module Outline

This module contains the following lessons:

• Overview
• Setup
• Asset Modularity
• Scenegraph Instancing
• Point Instancing

Prerequisites

Completion of all modules in the Learn OpenUSD: Foundations curriculum.

An understanding of fundamental programming concepts in Python 3 such as functions, loops, dictionaries and arrays and Python 3 related libraries. Understanding of OpenUSD concepts and basic OpenUSD API’s.

Tools, Libraries and Frameworks Used

OpenUSD