Scene Description Blueprints

Now that you understand USD’s fundamental building blocks, it’s time to learn the essential schemas - the blueprints that give meaning and capabilities to your prims. In this module, you’ll discover how to use USD’s built-in schemas to create the core elements of any 3D scene.

What You’ll Learn

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

• Define USD schemas - understand how IsA and API schemas define what prims are and what they can do

• Organize scenes with Scopes and Xforms - use these organizational containers to structure complex hierarchies

• Simplify transforms with XformCommonAPI - use the streamlined API for common transformation workflows

• Apply lighting schemas - work with the UsdLux schema domain to light your scenes

Why This Matters

These schemas provide the standardized building blocks that ensure your content works across different applications and pipelines. A prim without a schema is just an empty container; with the right schema, it becomes a light, a transform, or a piece of geometry that other applications can understand and work with.

What’s Next

After we cover essential schemas, you’ll be ready to explore USD’s powerful composition system, where you’ll learn to combine and layer these building blocks into complex, collaborative scenes.

• Overview
• Schemas
• Scope
• Xform
• XformCommonAPI
• Lights