# UsdStage save prim

**URL:** <https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647>\
**Category:** USD\
**Created:** [July 2, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647 "2024-07-02T03:55:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ahren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@ahren](https://forum.aousd.org/u/ahren)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647/1 "2024-07-02T03:55:47Z")

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Hi everyone, I am trying to save USD. I set some prims to deactivated, and the exported prims will not exist in the USD scene graph. What can I do to save the deactivated prims to the scene graph?

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**Author:** ![BigRoyNL](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.aousd.org/bigroynl/32/413_2.png) [@BigRoyNL](https://forum.aousd.org/u/BigRoyNL)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 8:30am UTC](https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647/2 "2024-07-02T08:30:31Z")

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_I may be wrong!_ 🙂

A deactivated prim is **pruned** from the stage and will not be included. The USD stage represents the _composed result_ - hence it will also remove variants (if I recall correctly?), etc. because it’s just the “result” of the composition. Anything not actively there thus is not exported.

If you do not want to save the resulting stage after composition but want your layer’s changes then you should instead save or export the `Sdf.Layer` which does not represent the composed result.

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**Author:** ![ahren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@ahren](https://forum.aousd.org/u/ahren)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 9:30am UTC](https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647/3 "2024-07-02T09:30:49Z")

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thank you very much! 👍

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**Author:** ![spiff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.aousd.org/spiff/32/22_2.png) [@spiff](https://forum.aousd.org/u/spiff)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 11:15pm UTC](https://forum.aousd.org/t/usdstage-save-prim/1647/4 "2024-07-02T23:15:00Z")

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PS. `UsdStage.Save()` will attempt to save all mutated layers that contribute to the composed Stage, so you don’t need to hunt them down or use the SdfLayer API’s directly.