Needle USD Changelog

@needle-tools/usd — Latest: 1.0.0

1.0.0 - 2026-06-30

Added

  • Added optional material readiness policy support for loaders that need to wait for asynchronous material generation and texture loading before reporting completion.
  • Added matrix coverage for USD Working Group assets, Needle Engine runtime shapes, public viewer lifecycle cleanup, authored USD concepts, and culling/material edge cases.

Changed

  • Improved the existing Needle Engine integration so the Engine loader/component path uses the updated USD runtime, readiness, and cleanup behavior alongside the direct three.js Hydra path.
  • Updated the public viewer examples so original glTF samples use the regular glTF loader path instead of wrapping glTF assets in USD.

Fixed

  • Fixed Hydra lifecycle cleanup when switching assets so stale RPrim/SPrim state and three.js resources are destroyed instead of accumulating across loads.
  • Addressed repeated-load resource leaks that could cause out-of-memory failures after cycling between large USDZ assets.
  • Improved browser asset resolution for nested package paths, authored relative paths, parent-directory references, USDZ-embedded textures, GLB-embedded texture assets, and MaterialX texture assets.
  • Fixed known MaterialX and UsdPreviewSurface texture regressions, including separate metallic/roughness/occlusion maps, packed texture updates after async loads, texture transforms, procedural texture fixtures, and noise/bricks sample coverage.
  • Fixed material culling so materials are only cloned when the same authored material is used with conflicting sidedness, preserving animation bindings for the common shared-material path.
  • Fixed USD-authored normals/interpolation handling to better match OpenUSD/usdview flat-vs-smooth behavior.
  • Fixed single-sided/double-sided rendering for USD meshes and added shared-material culling tests.
  • Fixed variant and payload switching so old selections are removed instead of double-rendering alongside the new composed result.
  • Fixed up-axis setup before the first Hydra draw and across repeated stage loads so one asset cannot leak orientation state into the next.
  • Fixed camera/light SPrim routing and expanded coverage for visibility, purpose switching, native instances, point instancers, and nested package references.
  • Fixed Needle Engine loader timing and readiness so USD stages, materials, and animations initialize consistently through the Engine loader path.
  • Fixed three.js/Needle Engine import compatibility across vanilla three.js and Engine-provided three.js runtime mappings.
  • Fixed animated HTTP/USD package loads so playback time updates cannot dirty Hydra while an async initial draw is still in progress.

1.0.0-next.0 - 2026-06-25

  • Modernized the wasm runtime to upstream OpenUSD 26.05 with Hydra imaging enabled for the three.js render delegate.
  • Added the Adobe glTF file-format plugin, MaterialX support through Hydra material documents, and OpenSubdiv-enabled builds.
  • Added generated TypeScript declarations and usdview-style inspection/change APIs for programmatic stage interaction.
  • Switched the client MaterialX shader path to @needle-tools/materialx@1.7.0.
  • Added explicit package entrypoints for @needle-tools/usd/three, @needle-tools/usd/plugins, and @needle-tools/usd/vite.
  • Added a Needle Engine browser matrix that validates the USD package through Engine dist and package-module runtime shapes.
  • Added a technical demo render-host switch for viewing the same USD samples through plain three.js or a Needle Engine Context.
  • Read stage metadata from the live UsdStage API so up-axis state remains stable across referenced asset reloads.
  • Changed the license to PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0.

0.0.1-alpha - 2025-05-14

  • initial release