USD Contributions: Default "Add to department layer" to the task or task type

[BigRoy]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues.

Please describe the feature you have in mind and explain what the current shortcomings are?

Currently when creating USD publishes it requires a lot of custom tweaking the publish instance settings, like the "target product" and "initalize as" setting (separate issue #791?) but also definitely the often overlooked Add to department layer which defines in which layer your contribution would end up in.

@Lypsolon also stated:

Add to department layer: This is a place where i fail a lot of times. Because it just doesn't enter my mind that I need to set this. Would it be possible for us to set this from the Task we are on? It happened to me a few times now that i contributed to the model layer from my texturing work and then it tends to brick the asset (because i now publish only textures into my model and the default prim is missing and so on.) Maybe we can have a validator that goes out and checks this?

Also we are missing a department layer for texturing. It would be great if our defaults for the layers match the task defaults (maybe they should even be created from the task defaults?) I would like to have a texture layer: The thought comes from education at pixl visn via Giorgio Lorenzetti. In the studio he is currently at they apparently have a scene where a texture artist sets up the base material setup and then a lookdev artist adds to it.

How would you imagine the implementation of the feature?

It would be much nicer if this would default to your current task or task type - and based on that define the default value for your current context.

Because the layers MAY currently already mismatch with the layer names or you may work in 'unique' task names like FX_background I was thinking of maybe defining the default using profiles against current context task name and task type so that complex defaults can be defined in settings to match the studio's available layers in USD.

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• Note: The task type may be more granular (e.g. Model type, Sculpt type may both need to go into Model department layer).

Are there any labels you wish to add?

• [X] I have added the relevant labels to the enhancement request.

Describe alternatives you've considered:

Somehow dynamically define the list of layers and their strengths - but the ordering will be hard to define automatically without explicitly defining layers and orders in settings. We may just need to find a nice mapping from task (or even CONTEXT) to the department layer

Additional context:

No response