Hi everyone, learning SOLARIS here.

i do a lot of automobile-related visualization work.

before testing SOLARIS, i would usually have a GEO node with most of my mesh prepared.
so i would have the wheels, chassis, engine prepared here.

and when i need to rig them or animated them, i would create a new SUBNET on /OBJ level, and inside it have a NULL and use them as a rigging structure. so i would have main NULL, which connects to BODY, WHEELS ENGINE etc, and the NULLs are animated. (this way i can separate the animation from the mesh date, so eash to manage projects)

but basically any kind of simple rig with combination or parenting, some expression, and some keyframes.

however, i am trying to understand what the proper workflow is for USD to do something like this.

it feels like SOLARIS/USD workflow is to prepare MESH assets in /OBJ level, but do a placement, materials on /STATE USD context?

if placement happens on USD/SOLARIS context, shouldn't animation happen here as well? but feels like USD is not built as an animation/rigging tool, but rather a "staging tool"

if this is the case, should i be doing all the assembly, placement, animation in /OBJ level and bring in the whole animated mesh into SOLARIS/USD?


thank you in advance!

alteredgene
if this is the case, should i be doing all the assembly, placement, animation in /OBJ level and bring in the whole animated mesh into SOLARIS/USD?

That way makes the most sense to me. The scene import node can import an object hierarchy from /obj intact.

Solaris isn't really meant to do rigging/animation, although with its constraints and transform hierarchies it could be technically used for some simple kinds of animation.