Omniverse Realtime Viewer

Render Settings

Triggers

Use this skill for render settings, quality controls, samples, denoiser, tone mapping, lighting, DomeLight, environment map, resolution setting, or settings persistence.

Use this skill for user-facing controls that affect rendered output or per-frame buffers.

Read viewer-control-patterns when exposing these settings in React, ovui, ovui_widgets, or Dear ImGui. It owns the client-agnostic guidance for sliders, numeric inputs, toggles, labels, disabled states, and confirmations.

For ovrtx render setting, RenderProduct, RenderVar, AOV, or release behavior not covered here, read references/dependencies/ovrtx.md, then use the ovrtx supplemental repository skills/, samples, and release notes referenced there. Do not guess omni:rtx:* attributes, write_attribute names, or renderer APIs.

For spectral transport, renderer startup profiles, and lighting-contribution views, use the sections below. For clipping, capped cross-sections, or a plane gizmo, read section views.

Capability-Driven Settings

Every visible render setting must come from a server-owned supported-settings list. Do not hard-code optimistic controls in React.

@dataclass
class RenderSettingCapability:
    key: str
    label: str
    control: str
    applies_at: str  # immediate | reload_required | process_restart | next_scene_load | unsupported
    apply_path: str
    validated: bool
    validation_evidence: str

The frontend renders only capabilities where validated is true and applies_at is not unsupported. Unsupported settings should be omitted from the live render settings panel, not shown as hopeful sliders or toggles.

Persisted JSON is only saved preference state. It is not proof that a setting was applied to the active render. A successful setting change must either change the active viewer state immediately or be part of an explicit non-live workflow such as "Apply and reload stage," "Restart with this profile," or "Use for newly opened scenes." Do not send renderSettingsChanged.result = "success" for a client form update unless the payload also reports whether the active render changed through applied, applies_at, requires_reload, and requires_restart when a process change is needed.

Keep effective render settings outside the USD asset. The viewer can restore validated settings across scene changes without modifying user files.

Apply Path Classes

setRenderSettingRequest must reject keys that are not in the capability list:

{
  "key": "samples_per_pixel",
  "result": "error",
  "applied": false,
  "applies_at": "unsupported",
  "requires_reload": false,
  "message": "Unsupported render setting: samples_per_pixel"
}

For supported settings, renderSettingsChanged reports effective state and whether the active render changed:

{
  "settings": {"exposure": 1.0},
  "result": "success",
  "applied": true,
  "applies_at": "immediate",
  "requires_reload": false
}

Startup profiles and spectral controls

Separate resource preparation from per-RenderProduct settings. Follow the selected OVRTX release's renderer configuration and spectral rendering guidance for process-lifetime choices, supported modes, controls, and physical illuminants. A mode selector does not release resources initialized for other modes.

Expose live spectral controls only after startup support and the active product mode are verified. Validate wavelength bounds and observer choices against that release; acknowledge effective runtime state after publication. Disabling tracing on a prepared renderer does not recreate an RGB-only process. Use separate processes for controlled RGB/spectral comparisons and follow upstream's scene-wide restrictions on mixing products. Preserve camera, scene, exposure, and sampling policy when comparing; distinguish a visible result from measured spectral accuracy. RGB-authored materials do not establish measured spectral material responses.

Render Vars

Request render vars in the inline root/session RenderProduct.orderedVars.

def "Vars" {
    def RenderVar "LdrColor"
    {
        uniform string sourceName = "LdrColor"
    }
}
def RenderProduct "ViewportTexture0" {
    rel camera = </Render/OVCamera>
    rel orderedVars = [</Render/Vars/LdrColor>]
    uniform int2 resolution = (1920, 1080)
}

In fout.render_vars, keys are full RenderVar prim paths (for example, /Render/Vars/LdrColor), not sourceName or the short prim name. Preserve sourceName only for an AOV's user-facing category and conversion policy. Extra render vars increase VRAM use, around 8 MB per 1080p uint32 buffer. Picking uses native OVRTX pick queries and the renderer path dictionary, so do not request segmentation render vars just for object selection.

Use the multi-line RenderVar form above. Some ovrtx parser builds reject inline one-line RenderVar definitions.

Browser Streaming Defaults

For browser-streamed ovrtx viewers, expose only verified immediate controls by default.

• AOV/debug view is allowed when wired through aov-switching and frame extraction has the requested render var.

• Exposure and tone mapping are allowed only when implemented in the frame conversion path before BGRA streaming, or through a verified ovrtx renderer/session path.

• Samples, denoiser, lighting, and resolution are omitted unless the generated app owns a verified live apply path or an explicit non-live profile workflow.

Do not expose a live control just because a value exists in settings JSON or in a generated wrapper. Controls that require rebuilding the composite/session wrapper belong to scene-load or render-profile workflows.

For approximate tuning such as exposure or intensity, use a slider. Pair the slider with a numeric input when exact values matter. Clamp before sending to the backend and echo the effective value if the backend adjusts it.

Lighting Controls

Default rule: do not add session fallback lights. Stages own their lighting, and injected lights make local and streaming samples diverge.

If the user asks for viewer-controlled lighting, expose live lighting controls only when the app owns the light and has verified an OVStage/runtime data-plane write path or standalone compatibility attribute-write path. If lighting can only be changed by rebuilding session data, classify it as a reload-required render profile option.

Viewer-owned lights can be authored in the session layer so they can be recreated on reload without editing the asset:

def Scope "ViewerLighting" {
    def DomeLight "Environment" {
        float intensity = 500
        asset texture:file = @./env.hdr@
    }
}

Use UI toggles for enable/disable, intensity sliders, and an environment texture picker only when they map to a verified capability. If environment_texture is relative, resolve it against a stable settings/cache directory before authoring the session layer.

Applying After Scene Changes

Scene management should apply supported profile/default settings while building inline root/session data and before the first user-visible frame:

settings = ViewerRenderSettings.load(settings_path)
inline_root = make_inline_root_stage(scene_url, settings.width, settings.height, settings)
ordinal += 1
population.open_usd_from_string(
    stage,
    inline_root,
    ordinal=ordinal,
    domains=PopulationDomain.RENDERING,
)
stage.advance_write_floor(ordinal).wait()
settings.save(settings_path)

If a local render resolution changes at runtime, update all dependent state: render product, CPU/GPU output buffers, ImageBridge, letterbox math, pick coordinate mapping, and camera aspect. Browser-streamed Omniverse Realtime Viewer apps should use a fixed render resolution such as 1920x1080 and scale the video with object-fit: contain. Treat WebRTC resolution changes as a stream profile requiring explicit restart/reconnect behavior.

Validation Evidence

Generated apps must keep evidence for every visible render setting:

• before/after frame or pixel-stat evidence for visual settings;

• backend state proof from a verified API for renderer settings;

• ovrtx supplemental skills/, samples, or release-note evidence for API-backed paths not covered in this skill package;

• generated wrapper diff plus explicit user-triggered reload evidence for non-live profile settings;

• rejected unsupported-key response for settings intentionally omitted from the panel.

If no setting has evidence, do not generate a render settings panel. Persisting a value or echoing client form state is not validation evidence.

Gotchas

• LdrColor casing matters.

• Do not put lights in the generic session layer unless the feature is explicitly enabled and represented as a validated capability.

• Render-var output keys are full authored prim paths; use sourceName only to label or classify an AOV.

• Prefer supported CUDA mappings for streaming. Some outputs may require a host copy and upload; discover per-output device support and report that cost through aov-switching.

• Add render vars only when a feature needs them. Basic streamed viewers start with LdrColor only.

• Save validated settings before switching scenes if the UI allows immediate scene changes, but do not treat persistence as active-render application.

• renderSettingsChanged must describe effective state, including whether the requested setting was applied.

See also: viewer-control-patterns, stage-loading, stage-management, object-selection, streaming-server.

Adding This To An Existing Omniverse Realtime Viewer

• Add server/render_settings.py with a supported-settings capability list and a small JSON-backed store for validated settings and non-live defaults.

• Keep server state for active settings, fixed stream profile, required render vars, and any validated viewer lighting state.

• Modify scene_loader.py or the OVStage population adapter so inline session RenderProduct, RenderVars, and optional lighting reflect only validated profile/default settings.

• Add messages such as getRenderSettingsRequest, setRenderSettingRequest, and renderSettingsChanged.

• Keep existing toggleSegView only if the app already exposes a segmentation/debug view.

• Frontend wires RenderSettingsPanel from the server capability list. It must not render unsupported controls.

• Reapply validated settings after every scene load/reset through stage-management.

• Local resolution changes must also update buffers, letterbox math, pick coordinate mapping, and camera aspect. Streaming resolution changes require an explicit restart/reconfiguration path and should not appear as a live slider.

• Save settings after successful validation, but only report success when the active state changed or an explicit non-live operation was queued.

• Do not inject viewer lights unless the user explicitly enables viewer-controlled lighting and the app exposes the capability honestly.