USD Import and Export

We've added support for scene import and export in Universal Scene Description, .usd, .usda, .usdc, and .usdz, which improves your data interoperability and provides a way to better work collaboratively.

Video captions: In VRED 2025, I’m happy to announce that we implemented the ability to import and export USD files. This gives you a ton of more options and possibilities within your pipeline and also when working with different platforms and teams and so you can exchange data with different applications, like Maya and many more. For more information about the USD format options, please visit our documentation.

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USD (Universal Scene Description) was created by Pixar to enable artists using a variety of desktop applications to collaborate. Due to its nondestructive nature, multiple users can work on the same file from different locations, in different applications, at the same time. An Alias and a VRED user can work on the same file and see each other changes, without this affecting their own work.

Supported File Formats

Here are the different supported USD file formats:

.usd via ATF (Automated Test Framework)
.usda is an API (Application Programming Interface) that can be opened in a text editor, such as Notepad++, and edited
.usdc are binary files and begin with the hex values 5058522D55534443 or PXR-USDC in ascii
.usdz is a zipped file

Supported USD Content

This is a list of what will be supported in the USD:

Animation - Support for basic linear animation curve interpolation import and export to support working with the creative ecosystem. This includes the import of polygon mesh keyframe animations.
Cameras - Support for basic camera import and export, including the following:
- Camera transformation (i.e., from at and up)
- F-Stop
- Near/Far clipping plane
- Type (perspective/orthographic)
- Sensor size
- Field of view
- Name
- Focal length
- Principal point offset
- For USD, only horizontal Field of View (mode) is supported
Note:

Camera constraints are not taken into account.
Geometry (Tessellated only) - Support for importing and exporting tessellated geometry data only in and out of VRED to work with creative ecosystem tools like Maya, Blender, etc., as well as Alias and VRED.
Graph structure and node names - Maintain data organization for the application of choice.
Image Textures - Imported and exported image textures are supported (only the texture file) and UV mappings.
Lights - Support for basic light import and export, which includes intensity, color, switching to light temperature (instead of color), and shadow intensity (which could vary slightly from the original) for these types of lights:
- point lights
- spherical lights
- spot lights (cone angle and penumbra are included)
- directional lights
- disk and rectangular lights
Materials (Diffuse colors only) - Support for basic diffuse color export only.

Important:

CHS/JPN/KOR characters (non ASCII/UTF8) are not supported in node, material, output,texture, or materialX filenames. When exporting as USD, a USD file will not be created.
Metadata - Support for exporting metadata.