About
This page is looking for a maintainer. Many thanks to Alan Blevins for creating and maintaining it originally.
Pixar documents the USD 3rd party library matrix tested before a USD release here:
https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/USD/blob/release/VERSIONS.md
This wiki tracks the unofficial compatibility of USD with the VFX reference platform, vendor integrations, and other versions of 3rd party libraries, as reported by the USD community. Pixar does not endorse any compatibility listed here, and the build tools that ship with USD may not directly support building USD with alternate dependencies and requirements. That said, studios have had success using USD in the configurations reported below.
Compatibility charts use these symbols to denote likely compatibility.
 | Compatible, verified in production |
|---|---|
 | Partially compatible, or customizations required to obtain compatibility - see footnotes for details |
 | Verified not compatible |
 | No compatibility reports yet |
VFX Reference Platform Compatibility
About the VFX Reference Platform:
The VFX Reference Platform is a set of tool and library versions to be used as a common target platform for building software for the VFX industry. Its purpose is to minimise incompatibilities between different software packages, ease the support burden for Linux-based pipelines and encourage further adoption of Linux by software vendors. The Reference Platform is updated annually by a group of software vendors in collaboration with the Visual Effects Society Technology Committee.
The table below lists which USD versions have been built with dependencies specified by the various VFX reference platforms and used in production.
VFX Platform / USD compatibility
| 21.02 | 20.11 | 20.08 | 20.05 | 20.02 | 19.11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VFX-2021 | | | | | | |
| VFX-2020 | | | | | | |
| VFX-2019 | | | | | | |
| VFX-2018 | | | | | | |
| VFX-2017 | | | | 1 | | |
| VFX-2016 | | | | 1,2 | | |
1 20.05 introduced C++14 as a build requirement, but minor changes to vt/dictionary can enable C++11 support for a small performance penalty
2 20.05 moved the Alembic requirement to 1.7, but minor changes to usdAbc allow earlier versions to be supported
DCC Compatibility
Maya
Maya supports USD primarily through the open-source USD for Maya plugin:
https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/the-maya-blog/maya-usd/
https://github.com/Autodesk/maya-usd
Future versions of Maya will ship with this plugin and USD built in, although studios will still be able to substitute their own builds of the plugin and USD in place of the versions shipped with Maya.
USD for Maya plugin / Maya compatibility
| Maya 2020 | Maya 2019 | Maya 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USD for Maya 0.7 | | | |
| USD for Maya 0.6 | | | |
| USD for Maya 0.5 | | | 1 |
| USD for Maya 0.4 | | | 1 |
| USD for Maya 0.3 | | | 1 |
1 UFE (Universal Front End) is only available starting in Maya 2019. The USD plugin will build for Maya 2018 with reduced functionality.
USD for Maya plugin / USD compatibility
https://github.com/Autodesk/maya-usd/blob/dev/doc/build.md#2-download-and-build-pixar-usd
| 21.02 | 20.11 | 20.08 | 20.05 | 20.02 | 19.11 | 19.07 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD for Maya 0.7 | | | | | | | |
| USD for Maya 0.6 | | | | | | | |
USD for Maya 0.5 | |
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USD for Maya 0.4 | |
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USD for Maya 0.3 | |
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Houdini
Houdini supports USD through its Solaris toolset:
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/solaris/index.html
| 21.02 | 20.11 | 20.08 | 20.05 | 20.02 | 19.11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houdini 18.5 | | | | | | |
| Houdini 18.0 | | | | | | |
Solaris and USD are shipped as part of Houdini. Studios may choose to replace the internals of Solaris with a version they build themselves, using their internal builds of USD, by building the HoudiniUsdBridge provided by SideFX:
https://github.com/sideeffects/HoudiniUsdBridge
| 21.02 | 20.11 | 20.08 | 20.05 | 20.02 | 19.11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houdini 18.5+HoudiniUsdBridge | | | | | | |
| Houdini 18.0+HoudiniUsdBridge | | | 1,2 | 1,2 | 1 | |
1 Requires modifications to HoudiniUsdBridge
2 Requires modifications to HoudiniUsdBridge, Houdini Python modules (not delivered with HoudiniUsdBridge), some functionality reduced
Upgrading to Houdini to newer versions of USD
Unity
Unity supports USD through its open-source com.unity.formats.usd package:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.formats.usd@1.0/manual/index.html
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/usd-unity-sdk
The package works with Unity versions 2018.4 and up.
com.unity.formats.usd / USD compatibility
| 21.02 | 20.11 | 20.08 | 20.05 | 20.02 | 19.11 | 19.07 | 19.05 | |
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com.unity.formats.usd 2.0.01 | |
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com.unity.formats.usd 1.0.3 | |
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1 Coming soon
