Re:Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and Nvidia Form Alliance f...
by doctorpangloss on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @08:15PM
(#36965166)
OpenUSD is the Kubernetes of graphics file formats.
It's kind of like how you can have a Kubernetes manifest, it is indeed YAML, it looks like other text files, but with operators and cloud-specific implementations of default Kubernetes resources like LoadBalancers and Secrets, it is really a vendor reaching into your workload, using the format as a beachhead to lock you into something proprietary. There are people who use Kubernetes in a really innovative way, but they would thrive doing anything. The vast majority of people kind of say "how high" when the vendor tells them to jump. That's the closest analogy to things like "it's a file format a bunch of giant companies care about."
On a marketing and sales side, I mean, USD sounds like it's one format right?
Enterprises REALLY care a lot about file formats. It taps into boomer memories of using computers in a really raw way that they can understand. Like ".doc", ".xls", ".ppt" - they get that these are Microsoft formats for Office, oh man, it's so painful when I get a document that isn't a .doc! They can't wrap their mind around Google Drive, they still want .docs, they would burn the whole village down to be able to do the same thing they've been familiar with since 1997. Boomers love this, boomers run companies and spend budgets.
We're talking about decisionmakers who barely use computers, CMOs greenlighting AR interactives exactly zero people use for more than 1s, people who barely watch movies and never read the scripts they greenlight, people who decide to work with an interior architecture firm because of a steak dinner and football game box seats...
Indeed, in my experience not just in graphics for CG, architecture, games, and marketing but even in biotech, there's such an insane demand for specifically file format cohesion! It makes no sense, because it doesn't really impact anything substantive at all.
USD is essentially a zip file of vendor-specific blobs. There's a bunch of misdirection about this. I feel like the only people who are super excited about it are people who don't fucking make anything. They might make tools for people who make things, or they might have made a tiny part of a thing in the context of an insane budget that isn't representative of any creative endeavor anywhere. But these giant companies are committing headcount for sales, USD is a sales system, not for something that is especially groundbreaking technologically.
It's kind of like how you can have a Kubernetes manifest, it is indeed YAML, it looks like other text files, but with operators and cloud-specific implementations of default Kubernetes resources like LoadBalancers and Secrets, it is really a vendor reaching into your workload, using the format as a beachhead to lock you into something proprietary. There are people who use Kubernetes in a really innovative way, but they would thrive doing anything. The vast majority of people kind of say "how high" when the vendor tells them to jump. That's the closest analogy to things like "it's a file format a bunch of giant companies care about."
On a marketing and sales side, I mean, USD sounds like it's one format right?
Enterprises REALLY care a lot about file formats. It taps into boomer memories of using computers in a really raw way that they can understand. Like ".doc", ".xls", ".ppt" - they get that these are Microsoft formats for Office, oh man, it's so painful when I get a document that isn't a .doc! They can't wrap their mind around Google Drive, they still want .docs, they would burn the whole village down to be able to do the same thing they've been familiar with since 1997. Boomers love this, boomers run companies and spend budgets.
We're talking about decisionmakers who barely use computers, CMOs greenlighting AR interactives exactly zero people use for more than 1s, people who barely watch movies and never read the scripts they greenlight, people who decide to work with an interior architecture firm because of a steak dinner and football game box seats...
Indeed, in my experience not just in graphics for CG, architecture, games, and marketing but even in biotech, there's such an insane demand for specifically file format cohesion! It makes no sense, because it doesn't really impact anything substantive at all.
USD is essentially a zip file of vendor-specific blobs. There's a bunch of misdirection about this. I feel like the only people who are super excited about it are people who don't fucking make anything. They might make tools for people who make things, or they might have made a tiny part of a thing in the context of an insane budget that isn't representative of any creative endeavor anywhere. But these giant companies are committing headcount for sales, USD is a sales system, not for something that is especially groundbreaking technologically.