NVIDIA Launches OpenUSD Developer Certification Exam

NVIDIA has introduced the OpenUSD Development Certification, a program designed to validate the skills of developers working with the OpenUSD framework. The certification covers a range of essential topics, each with a specific weight in the exam, ensuring that candidates have a comprehensive understanding of the platform. Composition makes up 23% of the exam and focuses on the ability to author, design, and debug composition arcs. Developers must be familiar with all types of composition arcs, understand their functionality, and know when and where to apply each. The exam also tests the ability to debug complex LIVERPS scenarios, which are common in large-scale USD projects. Content Aggregation accounts for 10% of the exam and involves building modular and reusable components. Developers should be able to use instancing—both native and point—to optimize scenes and apply strategies for overriding instanced assets. This helps in efficiently managing and collaborating on large collections of assets. Customizing USD covers 6% of the exam and requires an understanding of plugin development to extend USD’s capabilities. Topics include creating custom schemas, file format plugins, custom model kinds, and handling variant fallback selections. This area tests a developer’s ability to tailor USD to specific project needs. Data Exchange comprises 15% of the exam and involves creating conceptual data mapping documents, custom importers, exporters, and scripts for data interchange with OpenUSD. Developers must demonstrate proficiency in handling data flow between different systems and USD-based workflows. Data Modeling makes up 13% of the exam and focuses on understanding the core data structures of USD and Sdf. This includes prims, properties (attributes and relationships), primvars, value types such as float, token, and matrix4d, timeSamples, and built-in USD schemas. A strong grasp of these elements is essential for effective USD development. Debugging and Troubleshooting takes up 11% of the exam and requires developers to introspect USD stages to resolve unexpected composition results. They must also identify issues in poorly authored data and optimize load and render times, which is critical for maintaining performance in complex USD environments. Pipeline Development covers 14% of the exam and includes high-level tasks such as designing a pipeline, managing assets, versioning, diagramming, documenting, and improving UI/UX. Developers should also be able to write USD exporter hooks to transform data into a pipeline’s preferred structure, manage build configurations, and remove proprietary dependencies from assets. Visualization is 8% of the exam and tests knowledge of key USD domains like UsdGeom, UsdShade, and UsdLux. These domains are fundamental to most USD applications and include elements such as meshes, cameras, materials, and lights. Developers must be able to work with these components effectively.