Isotropix Forums

Is it possible to encrypt a OSL shader so others cannot read/copy it?

It's not possible as far as I know. The only way is to compile it to byte code. Technically it won't be encrypted but the source code won't be readable by a typical human being.

Thanks. What is the command to compile / obtain the saved shader?
An encryption feature would be useful.

Even the OSL compiled files (.oso), which actually contain assembly-like code, are still readable by a human but it requires a little bit more effort.
To compile .osl files you'll need to get or build OSL binaries to use the OSL compiler "oslc".
Check OSL documentation: https://github.com/imageworks/OpenShadingLanguage/

Thanks, would it be possible for you to offer encryption of Python and OSL files?
OSLC seems to be platform-specific.

Feel free to submit a feature request, to get it evaluated: https://www.isotropix.com/user/feature

In any case, the scripts source code can never be protected at 100%: they need to be decrypted in memory at some point before execution, so they can still be read unencrypted from the memory, with some effort.

Are there other 3D DCC with such a feature?

You don't even need to make a feature request because I'll put my veto on it. As Anthony said it would be very easy to decrypt the source code since both OSL and Python don not support encryption. By putting a simple break point to the library a user could have access to the source.

If you want to hide the source code, then use the C++ API

Even though, the python byte code will be readable. As I said, we are not interested by providing such feature. I feel that the whole point of Python and OSL script is to share the source code to be able to modify it.

Got it. Yeah, just challenging when distributing a script to a client.
And C++ isn't a single file for cross platform. So would have been a nice feature to at least have an option for a basic barrier.