Texture Overrides

Creating texture overrides is a powerful tool for editing your USD scene, particularly for 2D and 2.5D scenes. They can also be used in combination with USD mesh creation to create textured cards, lightcards or 360 environments using textured spheres.

There are two different approaches to editing textures within a USD scene.

Overrides for single textures

You can create specific nodes and overrides for each texture by making them individually. You can do this using the Manage Overrides icon ( ) found on each object in the Scene Graph.

Click on the Manage Overrides icon.

You will have the option to add the override to an existing node graph, or to Create new graph.

Note: You cannot create texture overrides in the same graph as a Camera Reference node.

This creates a single Read and Texture Override node pair, which can be used for editing that USD object.

After the initial node creation, to select those nodes that were created for a USD object, right-click in the Scene Graph and click Select override node. This will select the Texture Override node that is linked to the override, which can be helpful in complex node graphs.

Note: Texture overrides are added to a shader, This means if you add a texture override to a sub-mesh, because it shares a shader with other submeshes, the override will apply to all of them.

Note: If you create a texture override on a Transform, (Xform), it will apply to all of the child meshes of that Xform, but not to any of the Xforms underneath it.

Alternatively, you can create an override through the right-click context menu in the Scene Graph:

Right-click a mesh or material from the Scene Graph.

Click Create texture override. You will have the option to add the override to an existing node graph, or to Create new graph.

Note: You cannot create texture overrides in the same graph as a Camera Reference node.

This creates a single Read and Texture Override node pair, which can be used for editing that USD object.

Managing single texture overrides

You can manage your texture overrides from the Scene graph and the node Properties.

In the Scene Graph, the Manage Overrides icon has a different color depending on the state of the camera override.

• Purple means there is an enabled override on the texture

• Dark gray means there is a disabled override on the texture.

• Light gray means that there is no override on the texture

Click on this icon to manage the overrides for each camera via the context menu:

• Enable Override - enables/ disables an override

• Select override node - selects the override node in the node graph so it is easy to find and access

• View the different overrides targeted to the object. You can select a specific override to enable it (indicated with the tick icon ()) or disable it. Note that if you enable one override whilst another one is enabled, it will disable the previously-active override.

• Create Override - create an additional override on the object.

You can use the Texture override node to change the target of the node using the Material Path property. This enables you to change what the override is applied to.

Note: you can enable and disable texture overrides from Project Graph, Scene > Texture Overrides, but if you want to edit the parameters you will need to do this by accessing the node properties.

Overrides for Multiple Texture Sequences

You can create overrides for all animated textures with B44 encoded EXRs within the loaded USD Stage. This method means better performance for playback.

To create an override for an animated texture:

Go to Project Graph > Scene > USD Stage.

Click Create sequence overrides.

The overrides will appear in your node graph (or the first node graph if there are multiple). If you don’t have a node graph created for the project, a new one will appear with the overrides in it.

Tip: It is recommended that all animated textures in a USD file should be authored as B44 encoded EXRs, and that nodes are created using this tickbox and button after a USD stage-load. Doing this allows Nuke Stage to playback the textures rather than letting USD do the image playback itself. This will improve playback performance.