OpenUSD v24.08 is now available on GitHub and its core non-imaging libraries can be installed via PyPI with the command line.
This release features more flexible content introspection and editing frameworks for developers, further simplifies build dependencies and aligns them with updates to the versions curated under the VFX Reference Platform for 2025, continues to modernize the graphics backend for the Storm renderer, and adds more user guides to the documentation of key concepts. The breadth of contributions in this release is a result of major collaboration across the OpenUSD ecosystem including the liaison agreements between AOUSD, ASWF, and Khronos.
Validation Registry Framework
The Registry component of the OpenUSD Validation Framework is now feature complete. This C++-based framework expands upon the capabilities of existing compliance utilities such as usdchecker, exposing friendlier, more actionable entry points for developers to implement and register validation rules. This then makes it easier for content owners to diagnose composition errors at the core level that would normally be difficult to decipher as a flood of warnings at load time, or mysteriously missing elements in the scene render.
Validation rules can be implemented in C++ at the layer, Prim, or stage level. Many existing Python rules have been ported to C++, and Python bindings are forthcoming — developers will ultimately be able to choose between C++ and Python to balance performance and expedience in their rule implementations.
The Validation Framework complements other USD compliance paradigms and provides a migration path for ease of porting existing rule implementations. It is also highly flexible in how it surfaces to the end user, for example in a lightweight experience like usdview for ease of visual debugging of content.
The Running Infrastructure component of the framework is in development for a future release, and this architecture is well suited for optimal scheduling and execution of validation rules to leverage dependency analysis, data parallelism, and cross-rule contexts such that the end user gets feedback as soon as possible as to the highest priority issues detected with their content.
oneTBB Support
OpenUSD v24.08 supports an option to build with Intel’s OneTBB via the — onetbb option to build_usd.py — this brings OpenUSD up to date with the tbb version specified in the VFX Reference Platform for 2025. This makes OpenUSD easier to integrate into runtimes that are already compiling and linking with OneTBB to leverage more recent improvements in data parallelism.
Python 3.12 Support
Also for VFX Platform CY2025, this release supports building OpenUSD with Python 3.12, further easing integration for software stacks and making more recent Python features available for scripting with OpenUSD.
Boost is Now Optional
As of v24.08, OpenUSD can be compiled without Boost. This streamlines USD’s build dependencies and makes it easier to avoid collisions with other libraries that may be tied to specific versions of Boost. Building Python bindings still requires boost::python, and a proposal that outlines paths forward to remove Boost entirely from OpenUSD has been published.
Relocates in UsdNamespaceEditor
The Namespace Editor can now rename, reparent, and delete Prims with opinions across layer stacks via the relocates composition arc. Relocates non-destructively restructure existing content for other contexts — for example, fitting an external provider’s source data to the conventions of their own pipeline. The ability to delete Prims via relocates is even more powerful than deactivating those Prims. Deactivated Prims can still be reactivated in stronger layers, whereas deleted Prims via relocates are gone for good without touching the weaker layers where they are defined and overridden.
Collections and Patterns User Guide
A user guide walking through the ability to organize scene content for group-based behaviors via collection and patterns is now available. Pattern-based collections are a declarative and dynamic way to group scene objects for light linking, where specific lights affects specific objects in the scene, and other expressive features that leverage well-considered asset structuring for powerful and granular scene controls.
Schema User Docs Framework and Contribution Model
A new documentation section opens up a framework for the community to contribute user guides for specific schemas in OpenUSD. The first such guide has been added for UsdVol as a set of schemas for ferrying large volumetric datasets as 3D textures to renderers and other post-composition runtimes in OpenUSD.
Vulkan Support for Storm
Leveraging Hydra’s abstraction for graphics backends, OpenUSD now supports a Vulkan-backed implementation of the interactive Storm renderer, available across many platforms, including Android. This implementation leverages more modern graphics APIs to improve performance over the OpenGL-based backend. See more details on progress and next steps for hgiVulkan in OpenUSD.
Check out the full release notes on GitHub.
Learn more about the latest OpenUSD advancements at SIGGRAPH by attending hands-on labs, sessions, the Alliance for OpenUSD and Academy Software Foundation USD Working Group and the OpenUSD Developer Meetup.
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