Optimize output data from Maya USD animation export

[BigRoy]

Changelog Description

Reduce amount of data extracted to USD from Maya USD animation.

Additional info

Draft.

Testing notes:

1. Publish maya USD for animation product - it should work.
2. Check the resulting published data in the USD file, confirm it does not contain materials, UVs, etc.

[moonyuet]

I tested out with these two options and also do some research on the mayaUSD. It seems that these two options haven't been exposed to Python as it errors out in maya 2025.1 during extraction.

Suggested change

	options["exportMaterials"] = False
	options["exportAssignedMaterials"] = False

[BigRoy]

That's odd. But they are in the list here: https://github.com/Autodesk/maya-usd/blob/dev/lib/mayaUsd/commands/Readme.md#mayausdexportcommand

Can you check which maya-usd addon version you're using?

[moonyuet]

I am at 0.28.0 not the latest 0.30.0. That could be the reason. I would download the latest version and try it again.

[BigRoy]

Thanks - yes. Seems added in 0.29.0 -> https://github.com/Autodesk/maya-usd/blob/v0.29.0/doc/CHANGELOG.md

Will take it into consideration. 👍

[moonyuet]

I tried with the latest version of maya 2025.3 with mayausd 0.30.0
The animation is published successfully.

@BigRoy Do we need to implement some backward compatibility for just in case users are using maya-usd 0.28.0 or lower?

[BigRoy]

I tried with the latest version of maya 2025.3 with mayausd 0.30.0 The animation is published successfully.

@BigRoy Do we need to implement some backward compatibility for just in case users are using maya-usd 0.28.0 or lower?

Yes, that's the idea. Do keep in mind this PR is still in draft. There are other things to solve too, like:

• This may need to be optional or configurable in settings. (especially for backwards compatibility with existing projects)
• Shouldn't crash on older USD addons, but if the setting is used on the instance what should it do then? Log a warning that the output might not consider that and hence may be different than what the user expects from the toggles?

[moonyuet]

I tried with the latest version of maya 2025.3 with mayausd 0.30.0 The animation is published successfully.
@BigRoy Do we need to implement some backward compatibility for just in case users are using maya-usd 0.28.0 or lower?

Yes, that's the idea. Do keep in mind this PR is still in draft. There are other things to solve too, like:

• This may need to be optional or configurable in settings. (especially for backwards compatibility with existing projects)

• Shouldn't crash on older USD addons, but if the setting is used on the instance what should it do then? Log a warning that the output might not consider that and hence may be different than what the user expects from the toggles?

This should be configurable in settings, but we need to inform users about the missing functionalities if they are using elder versions of maya usd.