QuiltiX Save

QuiltiX is a graphical node editor to edit, and author MaterialX based materials of 3D assets. It includes a viewport based on OpenUSD's Hydra, which enables viewing your assets in any renderer supporting both Hydra & MaterialX.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Installation
  • From PyPi
  • From Zip
  • From Source
• Running QuiltiX
  • Running QuiltiX using hython
• Integrating with your environment
  • Adding Hydra delegates
    • Arnold
    • Karma
  • Adding custom MaterialX Node definitions
• Platform support
• Contributing
• License

Requirements

QuiltiX requires Python 3.9+ as well as compiled versions of USD and MaterialX.

Installation

From PyPi

pip install QuiltiX

If you additionally require pre-built binaries for MaterialX & USD we currently provide these for Windows. On Linux/Mac you need to provide your own binaries for now. Here are linked instructions for MaterialX & OpenUSD

pip install QuiltiX
pip install git+https://github.com/PrismPipeline/[email protected]

From Zip

For Windows a zip containing QuiltiX and all required dependencies can be downloaded from here.
Just extract and execute the QuiltiX.bat

From Source

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/PrismPipeline/QuiltiX.git
cd QuiltiX

2. Install the dependencies

This will install the base python dependencies, excluding any development dependencies, MaterialX & USD

pip install . 

pip install -e .[dev]

Running QuiltiX

python -m QuiltiX

Or if you installed QuiltiX via zip you can execute the QuiltiX.bat after extracting.

Running QuiltiX using hython

QuiltiX can be run from hython, which is Houdini's python executable. This way you can use Houdini's built USD and MaterialX and don't have to worry about providing your own.
You will also be able to use Render delegates for Houdini like Karma. Read more in the Karma section.

cd QuiltiX_root
set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;./src;/path/to/python/dependencies
/path/to/hython.exe -c "from QuiltiX import quiltix;quiltix.launch()"

cd QuiltiX_root
/path/to/venv/Scripts/activate
set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;%VIRTUAL_ENV%/Lib/site-packages;./src
/path/to/hython.exe -c "from QuiltiX import quiltix;quiltix.launch()"

Integrating with your environment

QuiltiX tries to rely as much as possible on pre-existing environment variables from MaterialX/USD to extend its systems.

Overview over the most important Environment Variables:

Adding Hydra delegates

NOTE
The Hydra renderer needs to support MaterialX for it to work in QuiltiX.

What is a Hdyra Delegate?
"Hydra Render Delegates are bridges between the Hydra viewport and a renderer. [...] The Hydra Render Delegate system allows the ability to switch out the backend renderer for the viewport data in Hydra. [...]"^[src]

The Storm Hydra Delegate by Pixar is both shipped with USD and enabled per default in QuiltiX.

Adding additional Hydra delegates can, depending on the renderer, be a non-trivial task due to the need of matching USD (and potentially MaterialX) versions for the compiled binaries. Some renderers also need additional configuration for additional features like renderer specific procedurals or shaders.

To register a Hydra renderer plugin the Hydra plugin directory of the renderer needs to be added to the PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME environment variable. Generally renderers also need their binaries added to the PATH environment variable, but there might be additional variables for licensing or additional features.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of install instructions for Hydra renderers.

Arnold

To use Arnold in QuiltiX we require

• Arnold SDK
• A compiled version of arnold-usd

set PATH=%PATH%;SDK_EXTRACT_DIR/bin
set PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME=%PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME%;ARNOLD_USD_DIR/plugin

Karma

To run Karma you need to execute QuiltiX from hython. See here for more information.

It is possible to use additional Hydra delegates, which are available in the Houdini environment.

Changing the active Hydra delegate

The default Hydra delegate can be changed by setting the HD_DEFAULT_RENDERER environment variable to the preferred renderer.

set HD_DEFAULT_RENDERER="GL"

After opening QuiltiX the active Hydra delegate can be changed in the "View" -> "Set Renderer" menu.

Adding custom MaterialX Node definitions

To add custom MaterialX node defintions they can be added by adding the location of the node definition files to the PXR_MTLX_PLUGIN_SEARCH_PATHS environment variable.

Platform support

QuiltiX has been developed with all platforms in mind, but has been developed on Windows. If you see any issues on another platform please open up an issue.

Contributing

We welcome contributions to the QuiltiX! If you'd like to contribute, please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch.
3. Commit your changes.
4. Submit a pull request.

License

QuiltiX is licensed under the Apache License. See LICENSE for more information.